


Men Have Called Me Mad

by revolutionaryfury



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 1910s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Autism, Boys Kissing, Combeferre & Enjolras Platonic Life Partners, Combeferre is Mom, Courfeyrac is Smooth, Dancing, Did I mention lots and lots of Triggers?, Enjolras Is Bad At Feelings, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Guys this story is really dark, Hypochondria, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insane Asylum AU, Kissing, LGBTQ Character, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, Lots and lots of Triggers, M/M, Medicine, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Morphine, Multi, OT3, OT4, Panic Attacks, Prostitution, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rule 63 Claquesous for Diversity, Sadistic Characters, Self-Hatred, Shipping, Singing, Slow Build, Some Fluff, This is really really really long, Violence, ambiguous era, happy ending i swear, so much shipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionaryfury/pseuds/revolutionaryfury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a era long before our own, a large group of young people reside in an asylum for the mentally ill. Some are sociopaths, some are hysterical, and some have horrifying bursts of anger or panic. The one thing each of these young people has in common is a desire to leave the sanitarium and return to their lives as they used to live them. Within the castle-like walls of the asylum, bonds will be formed and broken. Love will conquer and sometimes destroy. Racism, homophobia, and sexism will be encountered. And maybe, just maybe, healing will ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> What have I done, sweet Jesus what have I done? Inspired by the lovely Kai's mental ward AU

_The Abaissés Asylum for the Mentally Ill_. Two miles away. That’s what the sign said. “Good thing most of the patients here are not French, yes?” Jean Prouvaire, the Asylum’s newest patient, attempted to joke.

“Why’s that?” the “behavioral officer” who was sitting in the carriage with Jean to make sure he didn’t harm himself said. He was a stout man somewhere in his forties named McGill who liked to talk about his little son and daughter, Alfred and Clara. In the two hours they had been in the carriage, Jean had learned that the boy was five and his elder sister was nine. Apparently Officer McGill was raising the children on his own, as his wife had died of the fever a year ago. Jean would have liked to meet the children after the way Officer McGill described them. Clara was a little tomboy, he said, who wanted nothing more than to play in the woods all day. Alfred was meticulous and acted like a little professor.

“ _Abaissés_ ,” Jean said, drawing himself from his thoughts. “I am French, you see, so I know. It means –”

He felt something in his chest stirring, and tried to suppress it. Of all times, this was the worst to have The Thing happen to him. He didn’t need McGill fretting over him. But then again, what if McGill thought he was lying about being French? What if he thought Jean was just pretending? Making a spectacle? He didn’t want – no, didn’t _need_ – the extra attention. After all, why lie? Why lie about something so silly? So trivial? But _was_ Jean lying? Was he not really French? He didn’t know was _Abaissés_ meant. Of course. That was just it. He was just lying to get the extra attention. Wait…no. No he wasn’t! Of course he wasn’t. He was born in France and immigrated over to America when he was fifteen because of his little “disorder.” Yes, that was true. He just needed to focus on what was true and what was not.

Things that were true: he was seventeen years old. Yes. That was indisputable. What else? He had an affinity for the feminine side of things. Flowers and keeping his hair in a thick braid. Judging by the fact that his hair was in a braid now and there were petals in his shoes...that was true, too. What else? What else? What else? _What else_? _What else_? _Whatelsewhatelsewhatelsewhatelsewhatelse?_

“Jean?” He could hear the voice of Officer McGill in the background of his panicked thoughts. “Jean, please. Explain to me what you were sayin’ before. What does that word mean?”

“I…I can’t tell you,” Jean stammered. “I might be lying, and lying is a sin. I cannot lie. I think I’m lying now.”

“What’d you be lying about?” Officer McGill asked, shifting on the cushioned seat of the carriage. He picked up a bottle of some substance and took a long drink. “Here, boy, drink this.”

Jean accepted the bottle – not taking it would be impolite, and being impolite was almost worse than lying – and took a short glug from it. He tried to cover his hacking and coughing with smiles, but couldn’t. “Oh, oh,” he gasped. “Forgive me, Officer. I do not mean to say that it is a bad drink, but –”

“Good old American nectar,” Officer McGill laughed. “Clears the head. Now, Jean, tell me what that word means.”

Jean looked around the carriage. At the mauve cushions on the straight-backed seats; at his round, pale green suitcase that was a bit like a drum; at the half-eaten bag of hard candies resting next to him; the heavy, old-fashioned damask curtains. “I want to,” Jean said, “but I do not think I can. I know it, I think, but I worry that I may lie.”

“Well, boy, it’s alright if you lie. Just say the word. Why did you make your joke?” Officer McGill asked, taking another slug of his drink.

“I am French, and the name of the Asylum means…lowered. Abased, the wretched. Wretched Asylum for the Mentally Ill,” Jean laughed. “How…sad.”

“See?” Officer McGill encouraged. “You just said the word alright.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Shame a boy like you has to be locked up in there. You’re a good boy, Jean. Polite to a fault, maybe, but a good boy anyways. Why are you going to the Ah-bay-say anyways?”

“They did not tell you?” Jean asked, feeling indescribably weary.

“No. It’s not at my liberty to know those things. All I’m told is that I’m to sit here and make sure the “crazies” – pardon the expression – don’t hurt themselves on the way. Then I leave ‘em. I try to make conversation sometimes, but I’ve been shouted at more times ‘n I can count. The effort don’t seem much worth it, then. But when I seen you, I said to myself, ‘There’s a good boy. He needs someone to talk to.’ So I did.”

“Well, thank you,” Jean said with a small smile. “I appreciate that, Officer. I really do. I am here because of little episodes that I happen to have. I need to be polite. Obsessively so. I cannot lie under _any_ circumstances. I obsessively worry that I am lying even I say the simplest things, most of them true. I’ve been in many fights because of my compulsive honestly, though. Even though I cannot be impolite, I also cannot lie. Sometimes I freeze myself when I am going to say something, and have a…panic attack, I think it is called. We moved to America from France two years ago because I started panicking more often and I would get…hysterical. Mother dealt with me for as long as she could, but finally she shipped me off here. That is why I am here.”

Officer McGill looked sad.

“I…I apologize, sir. I should not have told you that,” Jean said quickly.

“No, no, boy. It’s not impolite. I asked to hear, now didn’t I?” the behavioral officer said. “It wasn’t your story that made me sad. It’s the fact that a good boy like you – maybe a little panicky and rough around the edges, but still a good person –is going to a hell like this.”

[123]

Victor Bahorel, age twenty-three, sat in the classroom of his university. The professor was droning on – something about the law. After all, that was what Bahorel was studying. At first, it had seemed like a reasonable career. Something that would provide for his family when he chose to have one, something that was fulfilling to the part of him that enjoyed arguing. It wasn’t the most exciting career, or something he necessarily wanted to do, but it was what needed to be done.

From the minute they got out of high school, young men needed to find a job. It just made _sense_. Your school years were for fun and games, and the time after that was for working hard.

Bahorel’s problem was that he just wasn’t build for the “indoor” sorts of jobs. He was tall and strong, and fought on the weekends for fun. He loved the wilderness and working with his hands. He wanted to craft things: chairs, tables, shelves. Not be stuck at some desk scribbling on papers and studying cases until his eyes went out.

But that was where his life was headed. Besides, maybe being a lawyer would cure him of his little “issue.” Bahorel had struggled with intense anger throughout his childhood, encouraged by his mother and father to hide it. Sometimes, when he got angry, it would turn into something more. He would black out completely, and when he came to, he would have done something horrible.

Take for instance, the occasion with the neighbor’s dog when he was ten:

_Victor was walking through the cornfield in his family’s farm. He loved it out there in October – corn so high it went above his head and all he could see was the sea of green stalks and the blue window of sky above him. He broke into a sudden run, his lanky limbs flying, the thin leaves of the cornstalks making neat slices in his skin._

_Vic let out a whoop and crashed through the corn, wondering if he could keep life this way forever. If he just kept running through the sea of corn with the still-warm October sun beating down on him, maybe his life could stay the same. Maybe he would run through a portal hidden somewhere in the massive field, where he could be a kid forever. Where he could sip sweet lemonade, chomp on crispy chicken, and never go back to school. He would earn his keep on the farm, doing men’s work. It would be paradise._

_The young boy’s little fantasy was quickly shattered by a high pitched caterwaul. Vic paused for a minute, wondering what the strange noise was. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “Daisy.”  Daisy was his younger sister Emmanuel’s cat._

_Emmanuel was seven, and “retarded” as the doctors said. She wasn’t fit to be in public. That much was known. The cat was one of the only things she really loved, other than maybe Mama and Vic himself. If that cat was hurt, Emmanuel would have a wild tantrum, and get worse than she already was._

_Vic turned on his heel and sprinted in the direction of home. “I’ve gotta save Daisy,” he huffed to himself. “For Emmanuel.” His feet pounded over the dirt, skipping over crushed stalks of corn. He ran and ran and ran until it seemed like he had been running forever. The corn whipped his arms and stung. The sun began to get uncomfortably hot. Everything began to look the same._ Everything. _Vic was sure he was going in circles. Daisy’s wails had gotten louder and louder. An ear of corn slapped Vic in the face and he stumbled back, slipping on a leaf and falling on his butt._

_He began to get angry._

_He couldn’t get out of the damn corn! It was like it was trying to trap him there! And you would have thought someone was gutting the cat from the way it was screaming! God, what a weak animal! And to top it all off, he was only working so hard to save the cat because of Emmanuel. The retard. The girl who couldn’t look even look at certain colors or….or objects without screaming like a banshee. What did he owe her anyway?_

_Finally, Vic made it out of the corn. He ran towards the direction of Daisy’s now-diminishing cries and what he saw just fuelled his rage even more: the neighbor’s big black hunting dog knelt over Daisy._

_“Oi!” Vic roared. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’?” He wished his voice was deeper and more intimidating. Instead, he sounded like a little boy using words he shouldn’t. The dog didn’t even look up. That made him…incensed. Yes, that was a good word for it._

_Without thinking of the dangers of disturbing an all but feral animal, Vic picked up a rock from the ground and threw it at the dog. “Hey!” he shouted. “Leave the cat alone!”_

_The dog looked up, and its jowls were dripping with red. Vic felt sick, but looked down anyway, and saw Daisy’s mutilated body on the ground._ That dog ate my little sister’s cat! _Vic thought, clenching his fists._

_And that was it. He snapped. He looked around and saw a large, heavy hoe Papa had been using the other day to make rows for his seeds. Vic had been told to put it away, but forgot. Now he was really glad he’d forgotten. He grabbed the hoe from the ground and charged toward the stupid dog, screaming._

_Everything went black._

_…_

_…_

_…_

_When Vic’s vision returned to normal, the black dog was lying on the ground, its head bashed in, a bloody hoe next to it._

_“Holy hell,” Vic murmured, looking down at his big hands. Had he really done that? And why didn’t be feel bad? He’d just killed someone’s pet._

_Suddenly, his ears popped, and the sounds of the real word rushed back in. The first thing he heard were little Emmanuel’s screeches._

_“KITTY! DAISY! KITTY!” she screamed. “VICTOR KILLED MY KITTY! AND THE DOGGIE TOO! HELPHELPHELP! VICTOR KILLED MY DAISY!” Then wordless screams, just the loudest sounds he’d ever head._

_Vic felt angry again. A tide of red began to overtake his vision._ But wait. Vic, stop _, he thought,_ if you blacked out and killed the dog like that, what could you do to your little sister? _He forced the tide of red down. “Emmanuel!” he shouted, stalking over to her and grabbing the screaming child by the shoulders._

_“STOP!” he roared. “Stop screaming! Emmanuel Maryanne Bahorel! I did not kill your cat! The dog did! That stupid, stupid dog did it! NOT ME!” He shook her by the shoulders. “Do you hear me? Somewhere in that thick skull of yours I know you can understand me!” His shaking began to get harder and harder._

_Emmanuel nodded fearfully. “Okay, Victor, yes, Victor,” she babbled. “Yes, Victor. Okay, Victor. I believe you, Victor. Please, Victor, let me go, Victor.” She began to shake, tears running down her face._

_“NO!” shouted. “You’re just lying! You ungrateful little retard!”_

_“M-Mama says that’s a no-word, Victor!” Emmanuel stammered. “A very not nice word to say, Victor.”_

_“Oh, shut up! You shut up, you hear? I can say it all I want! Retard, retard, retard! You’re a retard! You hear me? That’s all you are! You get all the attention with your dumb little bob haircut and your stupid little face! You don’t look like anyone else, and you never act like anyone else! And you always have to say my name after EVERYTHING! Yes, I’m Victor! Who are you trying to remind, you idiot?” Vic roared. His rage felt worse than when he’d killed the dog._

_Emmanuel began to scream again, this time adding hiccupy sobs to the mix. Vic shouted at her, not even knowing what he was saying._

_He felt his vision go black again._

_…_

_…_

_Another voice joined in with his shouts and Emmanuel’s screams a thousand years later. It was Papa. The older man jumped out of his truck – he had been to town picking up supplies; Mama was at a quilting bee – and ran towards his children._

_“Vic! Emmanuel!” he cried. “What the hell is going on here?”_

_Vic felt himself calming down a little bit, and when the blackness faded, he realized he was holding Emmanuel by the neck and squeezing. He immediately released his little sister. “Papa!” Vic cried._

_Papa shoved Vic roughly aside and went to Emmanuel. “Child, what happened?” he asked her._

_“A big dog attacked Daisy, Papa,” Emmanuel sobbed. “And Victor went after the dog, Papa. I thought that he killed Daisy, Papa, but he didn’t. It was the dog, Papa. Victor got angry, Papa, and yelled at me.”_

_Vic felt his knees go weak. Oh…God. Oh…oh…God. He had just murdered the neighbor’s dog, screamed horrible things at his little sister, and then nearly strangled her. What had come over him? It was like some bloody black wave blocked out his vision and he couldn’t remember a thing, and when he came to, horrible things had happened. Sweet Jesus, what had he done? Tears began to snake down the young boy’s face. His knees wobbled and collapsed under him, and he fell knees-first on the wooden porch._

_“Papa!” Vic sobbed. “H-help me, Papa!” He cried harder and harder, his body shaking with horror and guilt at what he’d just done. “Oh dear God, Papa,” he wept. “I swear I didn’t know what I was doing! I-I was in the c-corn running about when I heard Daisy wailing and…and I went to help her, but when I-I saw the big black dog…I just got so angry! Everything turned black. This dark, never-ever-ending black. And then when it passed I had smashed the dog’s head in. Th-then Emmanuel just started up with her screaming and sc-screaming! I tried to tell her that I-I wasn’t the one who had killed Daisy, but she started in with her babbling and I got so angry again and I-I yelled these horrible things.” He scrambled around on the porch on his hands and knees, grabbing for Emmanuel. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” he sobbed. “I swear I didn’t m-mean a thing I said. Then everything went that_ HORRIBLE _black again and then you came!” He hugged Emmanuel hard. “Please forgive me,” he begged his little sister. “Papa, if you hadn’t come, I think I would have k-k-killed her!”_

_His father looked down on him coldly._

_“P-please, Papa,” Vic sobbed. “Please forgive me. I-I didn’t mean to.”_

_His father’s mouth became a grim line._

_“I…I need help,” Vic begged. “I couldn’t control myself. I need a doctor to help me. A teacher! A policeman! Anyone…please!”_

_“No!” his father snapped abruptly. “Never, do you hear me? We already have enough trouble as is raising a retarded child without anyone finding out. It would_ shame _our family if anyone found out about Emmanuel. Think of your grandfather! If it were up to him, we would have left Emmanuel out in the snow to die once we found out of her…condition. But, no. Laws are in place, now, and we’re forced to raise these…these determents to society. Your mother suggested shipping her off to an institution; an asylum. Or even some special school for the retards. But no. No one can find out about Emmanuel. We can’t have a mental case for a son,” the man continued. “Your sister is bad enough, but now you? I’m ashamed.”_

_“Papa, please,” Vic begged one more time. “What…what are we going to do?”_

_“No. ‘Please’ my ass. What are we going to do about this? We’re going to keep it quiet. We’re not going to tell anyone.” He grabbed Emmanuel by the back of her dress and dragged her away from Vic, in turn grabbing the ten-year-old by his collar and hauling him up so the young boy was face to face with the older man. “Do you understand me?” Mr. Bahorel growled._

_“Papa,” Vic tried again. “P-please. I won’t tell anyone, I promise, but I need help. What it if happens again? It’s so scary, Papa. I can’t deal with this alone.”_

_Mr. Bahorel let go of his son’s collar and struck him across the face. “STOP BEGGING LIKE A LITTLE GIRL AND DEAL WITH IT! I DEAL WITH YOUR RETARD SISTER; YOU DEAL WITH YOUR LITTLE ISSUE! WE DO NOT TELL A SOUL, AND YOU DO! NOT! DEFY! MY! ORDERS! IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?! AND FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, BOY, STOP_ CRYING _!”_

_Vic fell to the porch and wiped his eyes. He grabbed Emmanuel’s hand and raced inside, up to their little bathroom, wrapping bandages around his little sister’s neck._

_“Emmanuel,” Vic said quietly._

_She didn’t respond._

_“Emmanuel,” he said again, this time in a tone as tired as Father Time himself. “Look at me when I talk to you…please.”_

_“Are you going to hurt me again?” Emmanuel whispered._

_“No,” Vic said. “Never again. Ever, you hear me? I’m so sorry, and I’ll be sorry until I’m dead. I…I didn’t mean to. And when Papa hurt me, I felt the way you felt. So in a little way, we’re even…sorta. Oh, Emmanuel.” He stopped bandaging her neck and hugged her as hard as he could. “I love you.”_

XXX

“BAHOREL! BAHOREL! STOP!” It was the shriek that brought him out his intense flashback. He blinked, and his vision went from black to colorful and bright, bright red. He shook his head and looked around his classroom. He was straddling the teacher with his hands around the man’s neck.

Bahorel immediately jumped up, shaking. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “Not again.” He looked to his classmates. “Please…what happened?” he begged.

“Professor Collins asked you a question,” a classmate of his named Daryl stammered out in a terrified tone. “You were off someplace in your head, and he began to taunt you for it. You just leapt at him. Like a tiger.”

“Oh, Christ,” Bahorel murmured. “Not again. Oh, God please.” He began to rock back and forth and back and forth, tearing at his hair. “Notagainnotagainnotagain,” he whispered.

“Someone fetch the authorities!” another classmate – Davis Smith – cried. “He nearly killed Professor Collins! We all just stood here, yeah? We could be tried as accomplices!”

“Don’t get the authorities,” Daryl said quietly. “Poor Victor is gone. He’s rocking like a child. And look at his eyes – the boy is terrified. He doesn’t seem to know what’s going on. We need to fetch…” He paused, looking around at the other young men in the room. “The folks from the asylum.”

A collective shudder ran through them. Putting people in mental institutions was getting more and more popular, and sometimes even perfectly sane people worried about it.

It was a rational fear.

And so they came, the folks from the asylum. They dragged Bahorel, still rocking and babbling to himself, off to the _Abaissés_.

[123]

Lesgles de Meaux had always seen things. Ever since he was a child, he remembered talking to his “friends” and getting strange looks. It was only when he was about eight that his parents realized that he was suffering from some mysterious affliction, and not just playing pretend games.

If Lesgles had a penny for every time someone had given him an odd look, and he’d had to smile sheepishly, asking, “Are they not there?” he would be a rich man.

Lesgles’s parents were kind, country-born people with terrible luck. They were simple folk, who didn’t venture out much because of the horrible luck that seemed to follow them everywhere. From branches falling on the roof of the house to dogs just falling down dead, it had all happened to the de Meaux family.

So when they first found out about his hallucinations, they just laughed and called him a “creative child.” But it happened past childhood. Into his thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth years.

No doctors in their Southern, heavily-Caucasian town wanted to treat Lesgles because he was black. The very thought horrified them. And because there were no black doctors, well…his delusions went on.

Eventually, when Lesgles was sixteen, he started seeing the spirit of a little girl. She had the same skin color as he did, and looked quite a bit like him, really.

_“Lesgles,” she giggled. “Come play with me!”_

_He had thought it was the daughter of some neighbor. The only other black family in town – the Millers – did have three little daughters, after all._

_“Which one are you, little one?” he had asked her kindly. “Rosie, Eleanor, or Jeannie?” The three girls did look quite a bit alike. He was surprised that he remembered their names, even._

_“I’m not them!” the little girl cried._ _“I’m Dora. Dora de Meaux, silly!_ _Dontcha know your own sister?”  She tugged at his coat, giggling. “I’m surprised you don’t know me, Lesgles. Didn’t Momma and Daddy tell you about me?” She looked a little sad._

_Lesgles had knelt down on the child’s level. “Little one,” he said, not unkindly, “you must be mistaken. I don’t have a sister named Dora. I have a brother named William, and a younger sister named Effie, but no Dora. Certainly not as young as you.”_

_“I’m not your little sister!” Dora insisted. “I’m your big sister.” She crossed her arms and sighed, sitting down in the scrubby grass. “I guess Momma and Daddy never bothered to tell you about me, huh? William is six years old, and your_ Effie _,” she spat the name, “is twelve. You’re sixteen. And I’m seven! But I’m your big sister. I guess I left before you were born.”_

_“Left?” Lesgles had asked patiently. The child was obviously delusional. Maybe a bit like him. Ma and Pa had never told him about anyone named Dora. But…how did she know about Effie and William?_

_“Left,” Dora agreed. “I was playing in the woods when this big scary white man with a funny hood came up with a gun. He was dressed in bed sheets! I don’t remember much after that.” She shrugged. “You musta been born a couple of years after that. Then Effie and William. Now, please. Won’t you come and play with me?” She tugged his hand and pulled him up with surprising strength for such a small girl. “Please?”_

_“Um…I’ll play with you,” Lesgles said. Dora dragged him on for some time, babbling about something or other. One of her friends, maybe. Lesgles wasn’t listening. He was so confused._ Is Dora a…a ghost? Is she just a crazy little girl, or a sane on playing a trick on me? Did some cop put her up to this, just to get a rise out of me? _he thought._ And where are we going?

_“Let’s play by the tracks!” Dora squealed. She tugged Lesgles by some train tracks that ran through the woods, and plopped down right in the middle of them. “We can pretend we’re Indians, and the tracks are our river and we’re tryin’ to float down them in our canoe! Get in the canoe!”_

_Lesgles looked around the woods, listening for a train whistle. “Dora, this isn’t a good idea,” he said. “Trains come through here often. Just about every two hours or so. The last train must’ve come through…well, about that time, actually. Get off the tracks.”_

_Dora crossed her arms and pouted. “No,” she said, shaking her head._

_“Dora!” Lesgles cried. “C’mon, kid!_ _Get off the tracks! You’re gonna get run over!” He walked over to her. Suddenly, a train whistle blasted in the distance. Lesgles could hear the train coming. “Get off!” he shouted. The delusional little brat was going to get killed in front of his very eyes!_

_The train was in sight now, rumbling down the tracks like a giant, angry horse. Dora just sat there stubbornly._

_“Child!” Lesgles screamed. “You will die if you don’t get off this second!”_

_When the train was less than three feet away, Lesgles did something drastic: he leapt in front of it, grabbed Dora up in his arms, and rolled off to the other side of the tracks. The train rushed by less than an inch from his face, the whistle screaming like a woman being murdered._

_When he looked down at Dora to see if she was okay, he found his arms empty._

XXX

Needless to say, the story of the crazy black boy who leapt in front of a train clutching at nothing, claiming to be saving his sister, got around his little town. People started whispering about how he was a danger to society. A crazy old nigger. Suicidal, maybe. Seeing things nobody else saw.

Lesgles had tried to ask his parents about a dead sister named Dora, but Ma and Pa just shut him down. “We needn’t discuss the child,” was all his mother would say on the issue.

After this, the family packed up and moved to the north. The verbal and physical abuse from the folks in his Tennessee town was getting too awful. Some ten-year-old kids had knocked little William into a mud puddle. Effie had been harassed by some teenage boys; Ma and Pa were belittled whenever either of them set a foot in town. But Lesgles had it the worst. He had been beaten by people his own age, had stones thrown at him by children, and he was even hit in the knees with a heavy stick.

The family settled somewhere in the northwest, where cliffs and pine trees were the kings. Freezing rain crashed down on them most of the time, but at least they were free of the hot abuse from the southern citizens. Everyone was a lot more spread out, and when they did go into town, everyone greeted the de Meauxs like old friends.

Even so, Lesgles resolved to change himself. He called himself Bossuet, after some old French man he’d read about in a history book. He didn’t talk to anyone, worried that they were illusions from his head. His little “problem” had gotten so bad that he couldn’t tell who was real and who was a hallucination. His solution was just to shut everyone out. When Bossuet did speak, he used a sarcastic, wry wit that his parents hated.

He joked about his terrible luck and got drunk, muttering bitterly about his hallucinations. Life lasted this way until he was twenty-two, when he was found roaring at his bedroom wall: “LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU LITTLE BITCH! YOU’RE NOT REAL! _NOT! REAL! YOU! ARE! NOT! REAL!_ ” That was when his parents, with no other option, shipped Bossuet off to the sanitarium.

Luckily they took black folks…

[123]

 Masselin Feuilly did not sleep.

Well, this wasn’t entirely true. Sometimes he would crash down for an hour or two each night, waking up frequently and twitching around with nightmares. Other nights, he sat on his bed for hours, staring at the walls and becoming increasingly exhausted. Feuilly had tried everything he could to sleep, from drugs that knocked him out for hours to every sort of strenuous activity that would make most people fall asleep the minute they hit their beds.

But nothing worked.

Instead, during the day, Feuilly managed dozens of short ten to twenty minute naps that caused him to get fired from too many jobs.

The nightmares didn’t come during his little naps, and anything was better than the nightmares. All he could see in them were big men with whips and freezing lakes. A dreary, wearying, abuse-filled childhood. Feuilly wondered if his childhood was like that. In truth, he couldn’t remember a thing from those years.

It concerned him sometimes, but he was too busy trying to sleep to really pay much attention to his lack of a childhood.

One day, at twenty-two, Feuilly just snapped. One could say he went stark-raving mad. He was working at a racetrack – everyone was preparing for the big derby – when it happened.

“Oi, ‘Selin!” one of his mates, a young Irishman named Tom called. “Git yer ginger-headed butt over here! We gotta get this thing painted by tonight!”

The boys were trying to get a board painted with an advertisement for the derby. Everyone knew how great Feuilly was at painting, so whenever jobs like this came up, the young man was recruited. He stifled a yawn and loped over to Tom, giving his friend a weary grin and grabbing a drafting pencil, kneeling down over the board.

“Tom,” Feuilly sighed, “why isn’t the drawing of the horse done?”

“Well,” Tom said, grimacing. “I ain’t so hot at drawin’ beasties and…Marybell was hangin’ about last night…and one thing led to another and…”

Feuilly stabbed his drafting pencil into the dirt, gritting his teeth around another yawn. “Dammit, Tom,” he growled. “Do us all a favor and get your brain out of your trousers for once. We were supposed to have this three-quarters done by this _morning_ , and Mr. Blythe won’t be happy that it’s NOT EVEN HALFWAY DONE!”  He smashed a fist on the grassy ground, looking around at the busy people around him. Young teenagers preparing the stalls for the horses, older men were hammering nails and moving heavy objects, and people of every age were preparing the track for the horses to race on that night. It was busy and every detail was precise. Feuilly loved it.

But what he didn’t love, what a partner that promised to finish up the work for that night with a: “Go on home, ‘Selin. You need the sleep fer tomorrow! I swear I’ll get that horse drawn up and painted like a masterpiece!” and then didn’t follow through.

Great. More stress.

Feuilly began to quickly sketch out a horse on the large wooden sign. Their sign was basic and not too flashy: a jockey standing next to his horse, patting the large animal on the back. In the background, there was a bright blue sky and green grass. They had painted the smiling jokey already, but the horse wasn’t done, and the background wasn’t either.

“Ah, ‘Selin. I’m sorry ‘bout all this,” Tom apologized. “Here, lemme help.”

“No!” Feuilly snapped. “I’ll…I’ll get it done.” He yawned. “Just leave me alone and I’ll get it done. Go help the kids with the stalls for the horses. That one over there – the tall one – looks like he has no idea what he’s doing here. Go on.” With that, he turned his back on Tom and began to sketch. Large, sweeping lines for the horse and curved little squiggly lines for the clouds. Once Feuilly got into the place in his head where he drew pictures, it was hard to get out. It was like entering a dark room with no doors.

His hand moved rapidly, creating a frontal view of a large, majestic horse. Feuilly grabbed the pots of paint some minutes later, dipping a brush in and filling in his lines. He used broad strokes for the ground, sprigging in a darker green as tufts of grass for detail’s sake. He filled in the sky with a nice shade of light blue, painting the clouds a creamy white. Finally, the horse was all that was left, and Feuilly even got that done quickly.

When he was done painting, he realized that only about thirty minutes had passed. Feuilly had never painted something with that amount of speed. He grinned at the sky. “Tom!” he shouted over to his friend, who seemed to be lecturing the tall boy on the way to put hay in a horse’s stall.

Tom looked up from his admonishments. “Oi!” he shouted back. “What’s the word, ‘Selin? Need some help?”

Feuilly shook his head. “I’ve finished,” he said coolly, still frustrated at Tom. “We should bring this to Mr. Blythe!” he called over. “Help me move it, then!”

Feuilly felt a wave of anger rise in his gut as Tom walked over. Anger at Tom for breaking a promise to work and going off with some girl instead. Anger at the tall boy in the stables who didn’t even know how to put hay down for a horse. Anger at Mr. Blythe, his boss, for always being so demanding. And even anger at broader things – life itself, for one thing. Anger that he was an orphan, that he seemed born to be poor and struggling. That he worked so hard in life and never earned what he deserved. That he couldn’t ever sleep without suffering from nightmares. Anger at the fact that other than irresponsible Tom, he didn’t have any friends.

By the time Tom got to him, he felt a rush of love and hate rise for the Irishman. Love at the fact that they were friends, and hate for…everything about him. Did that even make sense?

 _My head feels…odd_ , he thought.

He briefly wondered if this was how a woman felt when she had her monthly “visitor.” Love and hate and conflicting emotions. Huh. A thing to think about.

“Lift the right side,” Feuilly commanded. “Be careful, though. The paint still isn’t dr –”

Tom hefted up the right side of the big board easily, grabbing it by the sides instead of the bottom as he should have. He slapped one palm directly into the wet paint. “Oh!” he exclaimed, realizing his palm had landed right in the middle of the horse’s muzzle. “Oh, dear.” He tried to gently extract his hand, but tripped backwards on a tuft of grass, landing on his butt. His hand slipped down the entire painting, smearing Feuilly’s work. “Oh, no. Oh, ‘Selin. I’m so sorry!” he cried.

Feuilly dropped the board, his hands hanging limply at his sides. The entire horse was smeared, its lovely chestnut brown mixing in horribly with the pale green of the grass. There was cloud-white bedaubed where the horse’s ear should have been. “What have you done?” he asked in a tone devoid of emotion.

“Please forgive me, ‘Selin,” Tom begged. “I slipped.”

“You did this on purpose!” Feuilly cried, clenching his fists. “That’s it! You did this on purpose! I know it!” It all made sense in his head. “You were angry at me for calling you out on plowing your slut instead of working as you should have! You did this so I would get fired! My rent is due, you idiot! I HAVE NO INCOME OTHER THAN THIS!”

“Hey, hey,” Tom said, trying to remain calm. “It was an accident, ‘Selin. I’ll go before Mr. Blythe and tell him this was all my fault. But don’t you go calling Marybell such names. She’s a good girl.”

“Oh, she’s a slut!” Feuilly growled. “The kid’s probably spread her legs for half the boys here!”

“Oi!” Tom snarled. “ _DON’T_ you call Marybell that name! She’s a classy thing, and certainly wouldn’t come in _contact_ with some of the people here.”

“Oh, yes she would!” Feuilly snarled back. “And she _does_! Why do you think the girl’s around her all the time, anyhow? She was having quite a bit of _fun_ with Mr. Blythe just a month back! Face it, Tom, your girl’s a slut!”

“You bastard!” Tom cried, and leapt at Feuilly, tackling the boy to the ground. They landed roughly, Feuilly’s back slamming against the dirt.

The wind was knocked out of him. Feuilly exhaled roughly, the chest hurting. “Get off of me!” he cried when he regained his breath. “Tom, get off!” He secured his legs under Tom’s stomach and kicked his friend off, sending the young Irishman flying. Feuilly had quite a lot of leg strength, considering how many manual labor jobs he had worked.

Tom landed like a ragdoll, but jumped up immediately. “Put up yer fists!” he shouted. “C’mon, ya cowardly bastard!” 

Feuilly didn’t want to fight. Now that he had some time to think about what had just happened, he was appalled at himself. The things he had just said – while true – were hurtful and cutting. And worse, they were aimed at his only friend. He still felt angry and mildly betrayed, but…he needed to stop. He was going to get fired if he kept up this fighting.

“Tom,” Feuilly said, placing a hand on his own sore back, “please. I don’t want to fight with you. You’re my best friend – my only friend. I’m sorry I said what I said. That was out of line. Marybell isn’t the girl for you, but it was rude to call her a slu – well, the word I said. I know you didn’t mean to ruin the board. I’m sorry.” He held up his hands in a gesture of peace and let out a yawn. “I’m just – I’m just so tired, Tom.” He sank to the ground slowly, with Tom’s suspicious eyes following him the whole way down. His head began to feel very, very odd suddenly. “I never sleep. Did I ever tell you that?” That wasn’t what Feuilly had expected to come out of his mouth. But somehow it just did. It was like his brain had detached from his mouth.

“No.” The tone Tom used was short and curt. Guarded.

“Well I don’t. It’s true. Sometimes I manage a few hours here and there, but I’m always plagued by these…these nightmares. Nightmares of men beating their children and this…this big frozen lake somewhere. And it’s always so, so cold in those dreams. Even though my hair is the color of fire.” Feuilly gave a weak chuckle. “Even though I have a head of flames, my dreams are icy and frozen.” His eyes began to run a faraway look. He was off in another world.

“Masselin, you don’t look well,” Tom said. “I…I think we should get Mr. Blythe. Take you to a doctor, maybe.”

“How odd,” Feuilly mused. “You never call me by my full name. Just that little nickname, ‘Selin. You know no one else calls me that? Only you. Oh, Tom. How funny friendship is.”

“I’m callin’ ya that because you’re worrying me,” Tom said edgily. “C’mon, ‘Selin. We should get a doctor, yeah?”

“No, just leave me here,” Feuilly said dreamily. “I’ll be…” He meant to end his sentence with “fine.” _I’ll be fine._ Before he could finish his sentence, though, everything went utterly black.

XXX

The next time Masselin Feuilly awoke, the first words he heard were: “Sleep-deprived breakdown. The boy’s empty as a used potato sack. Started spouting about friendship and things. He’s gone. Electroshock therapy is what I recommend.”

 _What pretty words_ , Feuilly thought, before the blackness took over again.

 

 

 [123]

Every night, both of them had the same dream. When she would lie in her tiny bed, curling in on herself like a kicked animal, she would dream of it. When he would pass out in some alleyway, or stagger inside their shared apartment and crash on to the couch, or even stumble into the bedroom, snuggling down with her…he would dream of it too.

It was less of a dream and more of a memory, you could say. One neither of them could forget.

_The ratty screen door slammed open, the broken screen shivering in the warm summer wind, the loose frame wiggling. A girl flew down the short wooden steps that led up to it, landing knees-first in the mire of the alley. She was clad in a stained brown dress. It was very plain, and almost inappropriately short. She scrambled to her feet, brushing the mud and dirt off of her knees, standing at attention with her hands folded behind her back._

_She was a pretty young girl. Less than twenty, with a long mane of brown hair. She was pale and skinny, with bruises covering her face and arms. Her feet were clad in men’s work boots. The boots hid a horrifying sight – feet that were cracked and dry, oozing blood and pus. It felt like she walked on knives on the best of days._

_There was a large boot print on the back of her dress from where she had been kicked._

_A man came to the screen door, throwing a dirty bag at the girl’s feet. “Don’t forget your clothes,” he grunted to her._

_“Sir,” the girl said politely, with no hint of emotion._

_“What do you want?” the man growled. He was large and intimidating, with deep creases in his weathered face. He showed no emotion either._

_“Please, sir, give me another chance. It won’t happen again, I swear,” she assured the man. She was speaking of a “client” that had been particularly rough with her. She still bore a bright red mark on her face from where he had delivered a stinging slap. She had gotten scared and pushed him out of her room, but not before slapping him across the face and then pick pocketing him._

_The man shook his head, his face softening a bit. “You’re a good girl, and it’s a shame you’re in this business anyway, Sousy. Maybe this is a good thing for you. Maybe you’ll get out of the business.”_

_“Please, sir,” Sousy repeated, letting a hint of her desperation into her voice. “You know that’s not true, forgive the contradiction. I can’t do anything but pick pocket and – and…this.”_

_“Make a business for yourself, girl,” the wizened man said. “You could make a fortune on a pick pocketing business, for all I know. But you can’t stay here.”_

_“I promise,” Sousy tried._

_“You promise what? That our reputation isn’t already tarnished? Imagine what that man thinks of us now. That the girls don’t like it a little rough? That’s the business, kid, doing what the men want you to do. And you didn’t do that. Not just that, but you slapped the man.” He didn’t mention the theft of the man’s expensive watch and most of his money. One could almost say he was proud of Sousy for that. “There’s just no way you can continue on here.”_

_Sousy didn’t reply. Her shoulders sunk, and she picked up the bag at her feet. “Well…I guess this is goodbye,” she murmured._

_The man sat down on the sagging steps, leaning against the creaky door. He motioned for the young girl to do the same thing. She sat next to him, and he put a fatherly arm around her. “You’re a good girl, Sousy. I hate to see you go. You remind me of my own daughter – my dear Charlotte. And I would hate for Charlotte to be in a business like this. So when I look at you, girl, and see you here, it breaks my heart. You can’t be more than…seventeen, eighteen?”_

_“Seventeen,” Sousy said quietly._

_“A seventeen-year-old girl should be finishing her education, darlin’, not working in a whorehouse. Now look here: I don’t even like running this place. Every time I see one of my girls take the arm of some man, grinning at him all saccharine-sweet, leading him up the stairs into their little rooms…it breaks my heart. But this business was handed down to me by my father, and my father was a good man.”_

_Sousy leaned into the large man’s side, and he tightened his arm around her. “If you hate it so much, why do you keep running it?” she said softly. “Why do you call your father a good man if he ran a whorehouse?”_

_“I run it because I have to,” the man answered. “It’s my income, you see, my job. No company would hire a scary old man if I just up and left. Maybe a packing company or a slaughterhouse. I dunno.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “And the girls. They’re my kin, I like to think. I fancy them my kin, my daughters. You know some of them haven’t ever had a father in their lives. I guess that’s what I am.”_

_“A father who makes them have sex with strangers,” Sousy growled._

_“Yes,” the weathered man conceded. Anyone else would have given Sousy a smack for saying something like that, but he didn’t. It was enough that he was kicking her out. He needn’t add injury to insult. He stood up, putting his hands on Sousy’s shoulders. “Think of this a fresh start, kid. You won’t ever have to be a…a whore again.” For someone who ran a brothel, the man didn’t like that word. “I’m doing you a favor, Sousy. I’m giving you an out. Some girls here don’t have that. Natalie and Champagne? Hell, the kid calls herself ‘Champagne.’ You’re destined for this life if that’s what you call yourself.” He gave a soft, bitter chuckle, and then turned serious again. What he was saying, he needed Sousy to hear. He needed her to_ understand _it. “And Natalie! Pretty as a little rose, but dumb as a box of bricks. No skills but in the bedroom. Where’s she gonna get a job?” He paused, looking into the girl’s eyes. “But you, Sousy. You’ve got skills, I know. You’re smart and tactful and kind. You can make a life for yourself.” With that, he let her shoulders go, gave her a pat on the head, and disappeared back inside the ramshackle building._

_With nothing else to do, Sousy slowly limped away._

_She managed to make it down most of the alleyway before tripping, her feet nearly screaming with pain. She landed on her knees again, whimpering. “What has life come to?” Sousy wondered aloud._

_“I could ask the same thing,” a little voice agreed._

_Sousy looked up from where she had been kneeling. A few feet away from her, a young boy was curled in on himself. He couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. He had short, jet black hair and cold blue eyes. Well, at least Sousy assumed both of his eyes were blue: one of them was swelled shut. There were deep purple bruises all over his face, and a red knot bulging on his jaw. His white shirt was torn open to reveal more angry bruises on his prominent ribs._

_“Are you alright?” Sousy asked softly. She wouldn’t normally ask a question like that of a young boy – he had probably just been beaten by the police for petty theft – but today was different; today they were both trash in the gutter._

_“No,” the boy answered in an equally soft tone. “I –I’m not.” Tears filled his pretty eye, and he quickly closed it. The motion obviously pained him._

_Sousy dragged herself over to the little boy, her feet like useless, heavy appendages dragging behind her. “I’m not okay either,” she said. “We can be un-okay together.” She smiled at the boy, but he didn’t’ smile back._

_“I need someone to help me,” the boy said seriously. “Someone to keep a secret, and who’s not afraid to take revenge.” He grabbed Sousy by the front of your dress. “I just saw you get kicked out of the whorehouse,” he whispered._

_Sousy extracted his hands, giving a bitter chuckle. “I’m not ashamed of that, kid. If you think that’s some incentive to make me help you, think again.”_

_“Fine,” the boy said. “Will you help me, though? You’re involved in the business of the underworld. And now that you’ve been kicked out with all your Earthly belongings, you have nowhere to go and nothing to do.”_

_“You should write a novel,” Sousy suggested sourly. “Am I a character or a person, kid? What do you want my help with, anyhow? Taking revenge!” She shook her head, scoffing. “You’re a little kid. Go home to your parents.”_

_“I’m twelve years old!” the boy shouted. “I’m not little! And I want revenge on the bastards who took my little sister.” He clenched his fists. “We’ve got no parents to speak of. We were just sitting in an alleyway eating an orange together when this big group of men came and snatched my sister away. She didn’t even have time to scream! They just snatched her up and ran off! I followed them and tried to get her back, but they dragged me to this alleyway and beat me.” He crossed his arms. “Clarisse is only nine. She doesn’t know about the cruelties of the world yet. But she’s gonna. By God, she’s gonna. She’s sitting in an abandoned factory tied up with a bunch of other little girls. That was the only glimpse I caught before the men dragged me away. I don’t know what they’re gonna do to them, but it’s something sinister.”_

_Sousy sighed. “What’s your name, kid?” she asked._

_“Montparnasse,” the boy answered proudly._

_“I’m Claquesous. It’s French. I go by Sousy so Americans can pronounce my name. Now look here, Montparnasse, you can’t just go after your sister.” Montparnasse’s face twisted into an expression of indigence, shock, and fury. Sousy sighed. “She’s their property now,” she continued, trying to make Montparnasse understand. “She_ belongs _to those men. That’s how this city works. And don’t you dare think of going to the cops. You’ll be dead in the gutter if you set one foot inside a police station. Before you go crazy, now, kid, hold on just a moment. Those ‘sinister things’ aren’t as bad as you seem to think. They won’t make her prostitute herself.  She’s too young. Even the most horrible men won’t have sex with a little girl. I got captured a time or two when I was her age, that’s how I know. They just made me do some labor jobs.”_

_The little boy glared at Sousy. “Oh, yeah?” he challenged. “If I can’t rescue her, and she’s ‘their property,’ then why are you sitting across from me? Aren’t you ‘theirs’ now?”_

_Sousy shook her head. “You ask too many questions, boy. You won’t get anywhere in this city if you ask so many questions.”_

_“Answer me!” Montparnasse cried with surprising strength in his voice._

_“Fine. Fine. The first time I was captured, I was eleven. This one boy – about thirteen or so – had taken a liking to me. He thought I was pretty, so he decided to be valiant and rescue me. Well. He – he didn’t know the score. He wouldn’t have done it if he knew the score. This knight in shining armor – Carlisle was his name – snuck into the abandoned restaurant where they were holding me and a few other girls around my age.  He ungagged me and cut my bonds with this little penknife he always carried.” Sousy shuddered. “I…I didn’t know what was going to happen next, I swear. I wasn’t even sure what the men who captured us were going to do with us girls. Prostitution, I thought. It’s always prostitution, isn’t it?” She shook her head and gave a bitter chuckle, lost in memory._

_Montparnasse ran a bruised hand through his short, inky hair, shaking. “It’s cold,” he whimpered. “It’s cold and I miss Clarisse.” He dragged himself over to Sousy, leaning his head on her beast, wrapping his skinny, bruise-splotched arms around her. “I miss Clarisse,” he repeated._

_Sousy, surprised, wrapped her arms around the young boy. It was the first time she’d shown anyone affection without being paid for it in quite a long time. She hugged him to her chest. “Shall I continue?” she asked gently. “You might not want to hear it.”_

_“If it will help me rescue my sister, I want to hear it,” Montparnasse mumbled._

_Sousy leaned against the wall, the back of her brown dress catching dust and brick flakes. Montparnasse tightened his hold on her. She splayed booted feet in front of her, shaking her head at the useless appendages on the ends of her ankles. “If you’re sure. He pulled me to my feet, little Carlisle. We untied and ungagged the other girls, and pushed open the window Carlisle had come in through. We helped the other girls out of the window, and then it was my turn. Carlisle was giving me a boost, and I was about halfway out of the window when I heard my captors storming down the stairs. They said…they said, ‘Alright, girlies. Ready for your training? We’re gonna teach you to live on the streets.’ And then they saw the piles of ropes and rags on the floor, and noticed all of us were gone. They saw my backside hanging halfway in the room, and Carlisle holding my feet.” She took a deep, shuddering breath._

_“Well, then?” Montparnasse prompted quietly. “What happened? To you, and to Carlisle?”_

_“Carlisle, he – he shoved my feet and I tumbled out of the window. I landed on the pavement and got a nasty scratch on my face for it. The people who had taken me, I could hear them talking to him. All of the other girls had run off by then, so it was just me left. I ducked into some bushes by the window, trying to think of all the ways I could rescue my Carlisle. I heard one man say, ‘Sonny boy, you stole our property. These girls were gonna work for us. Messengers and errand-runners. Our own little accomplices.’ And then the man gave this chuckle. It was dry and grim. ‘When they got old enough, we’d take ‘em as our girls, our wives, or sell ‘em into the whoring business. But now they’re all gone.’ I peeked into the window, and saw him shaking his head and making that ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’ noise through his teeth. I caught Carlisle’s gaze, and I could in his eyes, he was begging me to get out, to run off and save myself. But I was riveted.”_

_Montparnasse tightened his embrace until it was almost choking. He looked up through his good eye, the pale blue sparkling with an unreadable emotion. “Go on,” he said gravely. “You can’t stop the story now.”_

_“The man who had captured me looked at my Carlisle and shook his head,” Sousy narrated, hating the story. It dredged up so many horrible memories; many of these memories had haunted her nightmares for years, and some still did. She had tried so hard to forget them…. “He was grinning.” Each sentence felt like a giant rock in her throat. “He was just grinning and shaking his head. ‘You made a mistake, sonny boy,’ he said. ‘A grave, grave mistake.’ And then he pulled out a tiny handgun,” Sousy choked out. “And…that was it. The man….he – he fired and Carlisle crumpled to the floor. My Carlisle was dead before he had time to cry out. But…I did cry out. I screamed so loudly it would shatter eardrums.” She shook her head. “It’s not like I had never seen a corpse before. I’d been living in the streets since I was six; once an old man died in front of me. But…but I had never seen someone I loved just…die like that.”_

_Montparnasse was shaking. When Sousy looked down, she wondered if he was crying, but saw that the only emotion he was shaking with was pure rage._

_“I swear to God,” Montparnasse vowed, “the man who killed your Carlisle will die. I’ll kill him with my bare hands. And I_ will _get my sister back. The man who captured her will die. I’m never going to be in the underworld. I’m never, ever going to be as horrible as those men.”_

_If only that promise had been true._

XXX

Sousy was twenty-two now, and ‘Parnasse was seventeen. He had since found the man who’d killed Carlisle all those years ago and hacked the guy to pieces…while he was alive and screaming. It had happened when ‘Parnasse was fourteen.

Ever since that day in the alley, the two had always been together. They took care of each other. Montparnasse held her hand as she found out the infection in her feet was so bad that her left leg up to the knee would have to be amputated, as the infection had traveled. He had held her hand as the amputation happened, even though she was knocked high to the sky by morphine. He had hugged her as she sobbed when she’d received her creaky, cheaply made wheelchair.

She had taken Montparnasse in, treating him like a little brother. She had tended to every wound he got, soothed every intense nightmare he had, and made sure he had at least one meal in him each day. Schooling was out of the question. Life on the streets was the only education the two needed.

Eventually, they had found a little place to live, a tiny apartment on the street level in a poor neighborhood. Chicago was a tricky city to live in, though both of them would never leave. It was their childhood. Each dingy alleyway held some memory.

Montparnasse had vowed to kill the men who had taken his sister and killed Carlisle. He had somehow found the latter two years after that vow, and committed his grievous crime with a sadistic grin on his face. He had recounted the entire thing to Sousy in graphic detail, the same grin on his face for the entire story.

He still hadn’t found the man who had taken little Clarisse, and Sousy worried for the day he did.

Montparnasse had promised to never be a denizen of the underworld, but the underworld was a very seductive place. It drew ‘Parnasse in with promises of elegant clothing like had never had in his childhood, with the looks of fear and admiration he received walking through the streets, and with the knowledge that booze could numb his pain whenever he thought about his life too much and too long.

He never found Clarisse. She would be fourteen now.

Sousy watched her –what was he to her? A brother? A friend? Or, at least in his own eyes, a beaux? Regardless, she watched her whatever-he-was as he slowly destroyed himself. It broke her heart.

“Claquesous, my darling!” the young man slurred, breaking her from her long, intense reminiscing. “ _My darling, my darling, my life and my bride_ ,” he continued drunkenly, quoting from book of poetry he had found under her pillow.

“What is it, ‘Parnasse?” Sousy asked wearily. “You know you won’t win me over by quoting Poe at me.” She shook her head and gave a bitter chuckle, sliding off of her uncomfortable, rigid-backed chair and into her wheelchair. Her “constant companion.” The chair was always near her when was on any piece of furniture. She wheeled herself over to where Montparnasse was lying on their bed, staring at the ceiling.

It was technically her bed; ‘Parnasse actually had a bed in the other room, but he never used it. He always snuck into bed with her in the wee hours, snuggling up to her like a child. It was the only weakness he ever showed.

“My darling, my darling,” Montparnasse mumbled in reply. There was a long silence before he uttered, “I love you,” under his breath.

“I’m not your darling, ‘Parnasse,” Sousy sighed. “And you don’t love me. It’s just the drink speaking.” She said this, though she knew that he was being completely honest – drunk out of his mind or not. He had fallen for her years ago. He’d drunkenly confessed his love to her more times than she could count, and each time she responded with: “It’s just the drink. Go to bed, ‘Parnasse.” She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

She could easily see herself loving him, on the one hand. They’d been taking care of each other for five years, and she knew each and every thing about him. He was most certainly handsome. He’d grown his hair out so it curled long and black, and he always kept it tied back with an old red ribbon. He wheeled her around town with a proud smirk on his lips, and if anyone dared make fun of the vicious ‘Parnasse “wheeling some crippled broad” around, he would make them pay.

But.

With a capital B. He was five years younger than Sousy, and she was sure there was some law in place for loving someone so much younger than you. Even without this little hindrance, it was life of crime that kept her at bay. The fact that he would just as easily wax poetic on her beauty as he would disembowel some poor sap he’d caught in the streets. He was a psychopath. Grief from his sister had ruined him. He was sadistic and elegantly cruel. Crime wasn’t a problem for him.

But it was a problem for Sousy.

She had lived in a world of crime since she was six years old. She was frankly tired of it. After all, crime – the underworld – had led to the amputation of her left foot. When she’d been in the prostitution business, she’d been running down the alley behind the ramshackle whorehouse. She was late for a meeting with a “client” and didn’t want to disappoint. She’d stepped on something sharp. Sousy had never been sure if it was a pile of broken glass, or an overturned box of nails, or something equally biting. All she knew was that she had felt a sharp pain in both of her bare feet, and kept running. Whatever it was that was in her feet had gotten infected. Bearable pain at first, but then she couldn’t even walk.

And now, she couldn’t walk again.

Montparnasse looked up from the bed, rolling on to his side so he was facing Sousy. His pale blue eyes – just as gorgeous as ever – were surprisingly clear. He reached out and took her hands. “How many times must I tell you?” he asked softly. “It’s not the drink. I love you, I swear. Don’t you love me, too?”

Sousy squeezed his hands, and he gently pulled her wheelchair over until the wheels softly pinged against the brass bed frame. “I love you,” she said carefully, “but I can’t love you. You’re…much too young. And you’re a relentless…sadist.” She knew she could say the words with no fear. She and ‘Parnasse had been through too much. “Unless you change, it will never happen.”

Montparnasse sighed heavily. “Change isn’t in my nature, Sousy,” he said softly.

“Then…we will remain as we are,” Sousy said stiffly, formally. She hefted herself up on to the bed, making sure her wheelchair was still in reach. “Shove over,” she said quietly. “I’d like to sleep.”

Montparnasse wrapped his arms around her. “You could love me if I changed?” he murmured into her hair.

Sousy dragged the meager blankets over the two of them, thinking long and hard about Montparnasse’s drunken question. Finally, she settled on: “Yes, ‘Parnasse. I guess I could. But you’ll never change, so what use is it to ask the question?” She would never admit it, but she loved the feeling of his arms wrapped tightly around her. Hell, she loved _him_. She always would. But he was just so –

“I can change,” Montparnasse whispered. “It’s not in my nature, Sousy, but I can change. Or at least…I can try. I swear on…on Clarisse and Carlisle that I will try.” His voice was hard with conviction.

“Will you?” Sousy turned over so that their faces were mere inches apart. “Do you mean it?” She didn’t dare let herself admit it, but there was a flicker of hope within her. Carlisle and Clarisse were sacred names among the two. He wouldn’t just swear on the two if he didn’t mean it.

“I mean it.” With that, Montparnasse gently took Sousy’s face in his hands and kissed her.

For a moment, Sousy almost pulled away. But then she stopped, and kissed Montparnasse back. His lips were warm and soft against hers, languid and sure. She tangled her fingers in his long hair, which was still up in its usual tail. He moved his hands from her face and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

Finally, he pulled away. “Do you trust me?” he asked.

Sousy smiled softly and shrugged. “Can I really?” she asked, before leaning in and kissing him again. 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some new patients arrive...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. My name is Iris, and I am scum for not updating my stories. MOVING ON. Anyhow, this chapter contains some pretty graphic stuff, so I’m just putting a violence/rape trigger warning here.

She wasn’t insane. She wasn’t insane. Of _course_ she wasn’t insane. She was too good to be mad. Too sweet and demure and lovely and kind. She had long, soft yellow hair and eyes the color of the sea. Insane people had hair that had faded to gray and eyes that had turned watery, muddy brown. See? _See_? She had beautiful, flowing dresses in every color imaginable. Madwomen had garish orange frocks stained with their own dribble. She had a sprawling house and loyal servants and fun friends and a doting Papa. Insane people had none of that. She had everything a perfectly sane person could want to be happy. And she _was_ happy.

But most importantly, she was perfectly, wonderfully, indisputably _sane_.

“See, Papa?” Cosette begged, grabbing her father’s hands and kneeling before the old man. “Don’t you see? I have everything sane people have. So that means I’m sane!” She squeezed her father’s hands harder and harder, as if she could somehow wring all of his wrongness out and replace it with her conviction.

Jean Valjean looked down on his daughter and sighed, removing his hands from her vice grip. He took her chin in one hand and ran the other through her hair. “Look at me closely, child,” he commanded wearily. “Look into my eyes. Do you think I haven’t tried everything I could think of? I have, Cosette, I swear to you.  I’ve tried so hard.”

“So have I,” Cosette sighed, tugging her face away from her father. “I’ve tried to make you see. But you just…won’t.” She stood slowly, shaking her head and sighing again, her previous begging forgotten. “I’ve tried everything I could,” she said resignedly. “I’m truly sorry to have to do this, Papa.” She turned her face towards the direction of her brother’s bedroom. “Enjolras!” she called. “ _Nox tanox un ler-truie der ah_!”

Her brother was named Julien Enjolras (his mother’s last name); the strange tongue she was speaking with him was a language the two had made when they were five and twelve. Julien was Valjean’s son, but not his wife, Fantine’s, son.  He had met Fantine when Cosette was two and Julien was nine. They were married within six months, and Julien and Cosette had referred to each other as siblings ever since. When Cosette was about three, Julien became obsessed with “teaching” her. He taught her strange languages that didn’t exist, showed her pictures of dead and decomposing bodies in books, and had her listen to songs that had disturbing and graphic lyrics.

As she grew older, Cosette had seemed to be two people. The first person was her sweet side, where she acted like a perfectly normal teenage girl with her whims and giggles. The second person was sadistic and sociopathic, oddly cruel at random times and detached from feelings. Valjean thought that Julien’s odd lessons had something to do with it.

Both of them spent hours hidden away from Fantine and Valjean, plotting vicious things. Julien’s motive was a need to free people from a “tyrannical” government. Cosette’s was loyalty to her brother.

Julien came from his bedroom clutching a butcher knife and handed it to Cosette.

“ _Dertu, ioi wret_ ,” Cosette said, flashing a smile in his direction. She turned back to Valjean. “Papa, you’ve never understood us. When I tried to share our songs with you, I could see the confusion and revulsion in your eyes. You thought my dear brother was corrupting me. When we put on productions in Wrinnish, I could see behind your smiles a deep disgust.” Wrinnish was what she and Enjolras called their language.

“Cosette, darling, put the knife down,” Valjean said, eyeing the shining blade in his daughter’s hand. This wasn’t the first time this had happened.

“I’m afraid I can’t, Papa,” Cosette sighed. “Enj and I have discussed this for many an hour, you see. We believe that your insistence on sending us off to an insane asylum is…ridiculous.”

“And moreover,” Enjolras said with a sick grin, “a sign of fear.”

“Utterly,” Cosette agreed, smiling at Enjolras again. “Did you know, Papa, that when animals in the forest show signs of fear, other animals kill them? They rip them to pieces.”

“This isn’t the wild, darling,” Valjean insisted, sweat dripping down his brow. “This is a civilized town.”

Cosette ignored him. “Dear Enj said that I might try to appeal to your more paternal side by begging you not to send me to the asylum. I will admit, I wasn’t fond of the idea at first, but the more and more I thought of the hideous stone walls of the Abaissés, I began to feel fear. But then I thought of the animals ripped to shreds in the wild. I felt sick with myself for being afraid. And I thought to myself: _Cosette, why not utilize your fear?_ You see, Papa, we are different from animals in only one way: our brains. And I used my brain.”

“She did,” Enjolras agreed. “She talked to me of her fear. She could have kept it inside herself, but she talked to me. And I told her what to do!” There was a childish excitement in his voice.

“I did as Enjolras said, but you didn’t listen to me. And now that you won’t listen to your own daughter, I doubt that there is anything we can do but make you pay.” Cosette sighed again. “Papa, what kind of father sends his own children off to a sanitarium? We are perfectly sane.” There was a tiny flash of fear in her glazed blue eyes. “We have everything that sane people have,” she repeated for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “So that means we must be sane.”

Enjolras clasped his hands behind his back. “Father, I agree with my dear sister. Look into her eyes! Do you see madness in them?”

“She is a child!” Valjean shouted, jumping to his feet and wrapping his hands around the wolf skull the top of the cane depicted. “She is a sick, sick child! And you, Julien, are to blame for her sickness! You passed your own illness on to my dear Cosette! And look at what it has made both of you: sadistic and mad!”

“Father,” Enjolras said, unfazed, “I am neither mad nor sadistic. I care for the greater good, and I will kill whomever I have to, to get there.” He shrugged. “Cosette is my protégé. I have taught her everything I know. And now she cares for the people they way _I_ do. How can you interpret that as madness?”

“You tore the wings off of birds as a child and made her watch!” Valjean roared. “She _drowned_ the kittens we got her for her birthday! You are both insane!”

“For science, Papa,” Cosette answered. “Now, enough chatter. This is where we shall say goodbye.” She advanced towards him, holding the knife out in front of her.

Valjean backed up until he was against the wall, and Cosette lunged for him. With one deft, practiced stroke, he sliced his cane through the air and knocked the knife from her fist. It skittered across the room and rolled under a large side table. Cosette backed away and snapped her fingers at Enjolras, who leapt at Valjean with a roar, his fists at the ready. Valjean swung his cane up in front of his face and cracked Enjolras directly in the center of his forehead. There was a sickening echo from it. The blonde boy staggered back, glared, and dropped. Valjean walked over to Cosette. “Darling, you are going to the asylum. Pack yourself a suitcase. Do your brother a favor and pack him one as well.” He turned his daughter around and shoved her down the hall. She walked away laughing to herself.

[123]

She thought it was because she didn’t speak their language. She could understand some of it, of course – it was hard not to pick up at least a bit of a language after hearing it for years – but when she’d come to their country, she hadn’t spoken a word of it. She’d tried to get a job at a local factory that employed hundreds of women, if she remembered correctly. Sadly, though, the foreman had gotten very angry that she didn’t understand what he was saying to her. Or maybe it was because she’d slashed her fingernails down his face when his hand had started creeping up her skirt.

Musichetta was foreign, maybe, but she could hold her own when a licentious man thought he could take advantage of her just because she couldn’t speak his language.

It had felt good to teach the lecherous old man a lesson, but when he’d thrown her to the floor and nearly bashed her head in on the chipped tiles, she’d wondered if it was worth it. Especially when she’d blacked out and the next thing she knew, men in white uniforms were dragging her away to a place for insane people.

She had no idea what the foreman had said to the official men, but he’d convinced them that she was a loon somehow. And so…here she was. Because Musichetta had no family in this country, no one could claim her, so she was stuck at the Abaissés Asylum. It wasn’t all bad, she supposed, because there were other perfectly sane women there for her to talk to. Because they couldn’t speak _el inglés_ , they’d been locked away as she had, presumed insane.

Twisted as it was, it was how things were, and Musichetta wouldn’t waste time with needless self-pity.

“Up, up, up!” a voice called from the hall. “Time to get up, ladies!”

It was the plump, friendly redheaded nurse named Miss Brun who was in charge of helping the patients get ready for each day. Musichetta liked Miss Brun quite a bit, though admittedly most of what the kind woman said was lost in translation. Still, though, it was her smile that counted. A smile was the same in each language. She thought she’d heard _Abuelita_ say that a long time ago, when she was a child. 

Musichetta rose from her lumpy cot and smoothed down the covers. Most of the immigrant women and less-severe cases of madness were housed in this particular wing of the large, depressing building, so at least she was kept away from the loons. Musichetta had an inkling that the asylum staff knew that these foreign women weren’t insane, and that was the exact reason they didn’t house them with the mad folks. _That smacked of injustice.…_  Shaking her head to rid herself of those thoughts, she shuffled over to Miss Brun and smiled.

“Good morning, Miss Musichetta,” Miss Brun said with a kind nod.

“ _La mañana es hermosa, ¿no?_ ” Musichetta responded. It was mostly sarcastic, she would admit. She understood that the orderly had wished her a good morning, but her response declaring it was a beautiful one wasn’t entirely truthful. She supposed it _could have_ been truthful if she really thought about it, but she had no way of knowing. There were no windows in the large room where the foreign women slept.

Miss Brunn gave Musichetta a mildly exasperated smile and nodded, pretending to understand her. She roused the other women, who rose grumpily from their cots. Eventually, when everyone was dressed in the hospital’s custom long white nightdresses, the line of dull-eyed women shuffled out of the room.

It was breakfast time, and Musichetta was determined to enjoy it. That was her philosophy: _If you cannot enjoy something, just pretend you’re having a grand time. Eventually you’ll start to enjoy it…at some point._ She sat at the long, wooden table on a bench next to Isabel, a woman whose mother was American and whose father was African. Isabel had been committed because she frequently starved herself and screamed whenever someone tried to feed her. Isabel was from a far-off, hot place called Texas. Musichetta had traveled through Texas on her way to Oregon – where the asylum was – for her job.

“Mornin’, _senorita_ ,” Isabel said with a shy smile. The girl looked especially skeletal this morning.

“ _Buenos días_ , Isabel,” Musichetta said. “ _Gracias_.”

“For what?” Isabel asked. The girl spoke a bit of Spanish, but tried to speak English whenever she was around Musichetta. It helped, for the most part.

“ _Hablando mi lengua_ ,” Musichetta explained carefully, digging into the tasteless oatmeal they ate every morning. “Talk my _lengua_ ,” she attempted.

“I get it,” Isabel said quietly, staring into the oatmeal. “ _Yo entiendo_.”

Musichetta sipped the glass of tepid water they were allowed and patted Isabel’s hand. She wanted to ask Isabel to eat, but knew it was a bad idea. When Musichetta was done with her oatmeal, Isabel switched their bowls so that the empty one was in front of her, and chugged down the water. She thought that if she gave the illusion that she ate her oatmeal, the staff would eventually let her leave. She wasn’t fooling anyone, of course. “Eat,” she pleaded, gesturing to the full bowl in front of Musichetta. “ _Por favor_.”

 _I do hate this part of the morning._ Musichetta sighed a great sigh, wishing she could just say, “No! Eat your own damn oatmeal!” Instead, she nodded and quickly downed the cold, soggy oatmeal before the orderlies came by to check that their meals were eaten. The desperate glint in Isabel’s eyes dissipated to a content one.

“Thank you,” Isabel said, relief creeping into her voice. Her stomach growled sharply and the desperate glow came right back. “No, no, no,” she began to murmur to herself, slowly drawing her knees to her chest. She began to rock back and forth, wrapping her skeletal arms tight around her knees. “No,” she whispered. “No, no.”

Musichetta heaved a sigh and patted Isabel’s back sympathetically. Because of the language barrier, there wasn’t much she could say to the cadaverous girl. Isabel was now starting to cry. It was because her stomach had growled audibly, of course. “Why?” Musichetta asked quickly, hoping to distract her friend. “Why –?” She mimed Isabel’s rocking and whimpering, hoping to convey her message.

“Stomach!” Isabel screamed. That sent the orderlies running. _Dammit_. They tried to calm her, but it didn’t work. Eventually, they dragged her off to the Private Rooms.

Musichetta knew what would happen next: they would force-feed her. Shoving food down the throat of an innocent young woman who starved herself, watching as she gagged and tried to wretch it back up…it sounded like some disgusting horror novel. Even thought Musichetta knew she was proud, strong, and capable, it was moments like this that truly broke her heart.

[123]

Growing up, Eponine had raised the younger members of her family almost solely alone. As the eldest, it was her duty to watch out for the little ones, earn money for rent and booze, and somehow stay alive in their harsh little world. She lived with her family in a tiny street-level garret in a perilous part of their city, though she just barely “lived.” At sixteen, Eponine had seen horrors unimaginable; most of them had happened close to home. Rapes, murders, you name it. These horrible sights had hardened Eponine’s heart into something bitter and black, like a piece of coal. The little bit of lightness she had left in her heart was for her four younger siblings – a fourteen-year-old named Azelma, a twelve-year-old named Gavroche, and her two youngest brothers, aged seven and five. The little brothers had somehow entered this life without names, so they were given the options to choose their own names. The seven-year-old, being a boyish, playful child, chose to be called Lightning. The five-year-old, who was soft and sweet, chose Bunny, after a pet he’d adopted that their father had killed in a drunken fit.

The five siblings were bound by hardship. They didn’t long for an easier life, because that was a useless thing to do. Secretly, though, the second-eldest, Azelma, would think back to a better a time – a warm, blurry memory when she’d been Bunny’s age. A time where she wore Sunday dresses every day, when her parents drank less and laughed more, when they hadn’t lived in their horrible house. Oh, yes, Azelma remembered it. Maybe not well, but she remembered it. Eponine had been eight – and not all hard angles and downturned frowns. She’d been childishly chubby and smiley-cheerful. And Gavroche! _Oh!_ Little Gav had been only three. He was so happy, so lovable, tottering around. They had all been so happy. Life hadn’t been perfect, no, but…it had been better.

And life now? Well…it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. They were healthy, fed (most of the time), and had a roof over their heads. Yes, they were alright. Alright because they had each other. 

How fast that changed.

It was in the middle of the night when Eponine woke up to screams. Guttural, primal, terrified screams. She shot up in bed and glanced over to Azelma’s spot next to her. Whenever the siblings awoke to screams or shouts, they all did a quick check to make sure every sibling was there.

And oh, God. Azelma was gone.

Eponine shot out of her bed – a sagging, stained mattress on the floor and stumbled across the darkened room to Gav’s hammock.  He let the two youngest brothers share a bed, and had fashioned himself a nice little hammock. “ _Let the little bedwetters sleep together_ ,” he’d said. “ _I’ll make my own bed!_ ”

“Gavroche!” Eponine shouted. “Wake up!”

He bolted up, the makeshift hammock rocking haphazardly. “’Ponine?” the boy said sleepily. “What’s the trouble, I –” Another scream tore from the throat of some poor soul. “Oh,” he said darkly, and glanced down. “The kids are safe. What’s wrong?”

“Azelma’s gone,” Eponine cried.

It was then that the screams became words. “HELP! HELP ME! EPONINE!”

“No!” Eponine and Gavroche cried at the same time. They scrambled over each other in the darkness, any regard for their own safety quickly forgotten. Gav tossed a quick, “Stay here!” to the youngest boys as they raced through their tiny garret to get to the heavy front door, the only entrance. They tripped over heaped bottles and sharp edges of worn-down furniture, and still they kept running. Eponine unbolted the many locks on the door while Gavroche screamed, “HURRY!” over and over at her.

Finally, the door was unlocked. The next scream led them to the alleyway – _It’s always the alleyway_ , Eponine thought – where they found her. Azelma was on the ground, on her back, bleeding from just about every place imaginable. Three big men knelt over her, grinning with bloody teeth and scarred fists. Gavroche tensed, ready to confront the men, but Eponine put an arm across his chest, barring him from moving.

“The knives,” she whispered, and Gavroche nodded, then sprinted back to their house for the big knives they kept at their bedsides. They could not face the men without weapons. It would just get them all killed.

Azelma screamed again, but anyone could see that her screams were losing fire. One of the large men gave her a sharp kick. “Shut up,” he snarled.

“NEVER!” Azelma howled. She took a deep breath, wincing, and gave another wild shriek. The men laughed and said vile things, kicking Azelma into silence.

 _Hurry, Gav_ , Eponine prayed. Oh, she should have known something like this would happen one day. She’d pondered it, of course. That maybe one day one of the siblings would slip up and end up at the mercy of men like these. But now that day had come. Now Eponine was utterly helpless.

“Now what should we do with you now that we’ve got you where we want you, little whore?” one of the men asked, his voice mockingly sweet. “Should we kill you?”

“No!” Azelma cried.

“Should we sell you?” the second man added, joining in on their cruel game.

 _NO_! Eponine though. _Oh, God. Azelma secreted away into the whorehouses on the other side of the harbor…no. Please, no_. She wouldn’t survive a day if the men kidnapped and sold her.

“I think,” the third man said gruffly, “we should fuck you.”

Eponine’s blood ran cold.

“No!” Azelma wailed. “No! Please, please! SOMEONE HELP!” she screamed.

 _What’s taking Gavroche so long?!?!_ Eponine wanted to go find him, but she didn’t dare leave.

The other two men voiced their disgusting approval, laughing darkly. The third man, the one who had suggested the rape, he would go first. He would “fuck her.” The man stalked towards Azelma, who tried to scuttle away, but slipped in her own blood. She screamed, oh, she screamed like a banshee. But the man shoved her down, he straddled her, her unzipped his pants, he shoved her dress aside, he –

And _that_ was when Eponine screamed. Oh, she screamed. She wailed. She _caterwauled_. Because she couldn’t take it anymore. NO ONE would take Azelma’s innocence. NO ONE. Her sweet baby sister had seen enough horror in this life. And so. She charged down the alleyway towards the men with no weapon to speak of. She howled as she ran, her wide eyes lit up with a mad fire. She leapt on to the man who was going to hurt her sister. She caught him by surprise and took him down, beating upon him with her fists. She slashed her nails down his face and jabbed him in the eyes. He screamed, blinded for a moment. And since he was blind, Eponine took that moment to bring her fist down between his legs over and over.

“HOW?!” she screamed. “HOW DO YOU LIKE IT NOW?!” She tore at the man’s flesh and ripped his clothing. She brought her knee between his legs fast and hard over and over and over. She jabbed him in the eyes until her fingers were coated with something sticky and bloody. She stomped on the man’s ribs until she heard cracks. She punched and kicked and screamed and jabbed and scratched until the man stopped howling.

And then she turned, her fists bloody and knuckles broken, to the other two men. She smiled at them. And she knew she had won.

But then.

Oh, how fast things change.

The two men jumped her. And they began to beat her, and yes, they raped her. Over and over and over. And they did the same to Azelma.

But this time, Azelma did not scream. She cried.

Eponine didn’t scream either. She _laughed_.

[123]

Musichetta watched them bring in the newest arrivals. Because her behavior was exemplary, she was allowed to sit in front of the building and watch – with an orderly armed with a nightstick, of course. 

The first one was a young woman in trousers – no, that was a man. How strange. His hair was long and braided. He would probably be quite sad when they made him shear his locks the way they made all of the men in the asylum. He was carrying a suitcase that looked like a little drum, and he looked quite nervous. His eyes – beautiful eyes – had no glint of madness in them. This young boy, he was beautiful, his looks akin to a fairy. _Poor child. They will break him._

The next two came in the same carriage. Another beautiful boy, this one with long, blonde hair. The girl who stepped out was young – only a child. Fifteen, maybe. She had hair as long as the boy’s – her brother, probably. The two held hands and didn’t look scared. They looked proud, indignant, and angry. When one of the orderlies attempted to help the girl carry her suitcase, she batted his hands away and snapped at him loudly.

“ _Senorita_?” Musichetta said to the orderly, and pointed at the blonde siblings. “ _Por que_? _Ella es_ …” She couldn’t think of what to end her sentence with. She is…what? Rude? Not insane? She waved a hand. “ _Ni importa_ ,” she said.

They just kept coming, the new patients. Some looked terrified, others looked excited. Some were nervous, and one boy – he was sleeping! The one boy who caught Musichetta’s attention the most was a black boy who was snapping at nothing. He was handsome, and it broke Musichetta’s heart to see him put away like a criminal.

Finally, when the last one – a set of sisters, one silent and one cackling, were herded inside, the orderly tapped Musichetta’s shoulder. “Time to go in” she said.

Musichetta nodded. “Yes,” she said in English. “Time to go in.”

She wondered what was to come.

 

 


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello. My name is Iris and I am complete and utter scum for never updating. School got out about two and a half weeks ago, so I'll be able to update much more now. This story will probably be updated most.

                Musichetta sat in the library, listening to her two favorite doctors – Dr. Combeferre and Dr. Joly – chatting about something. They were handsome French doctors who’d transferred over to the asylum about two months ago. She couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, obviously, but still liked to listen to their pretty voices rise and fall. She was in a slightly uncomfortable chair reading a children’s book in English with the occasional help of a kindly Irish girl called Sarah. The library was a nice room with stone floors and stone walls and a stone ceiling…well, everything was pretty much made of cold gray stone, like an old castle. There were large glass windows overlooking the entrance to the asylum (they had bars on them of course) and shelves upon shelves of any type of literature imaginable. That was the best part.

                Library time was always peaceful, relaxing. No terrible orderlies, no loons, no probing therapists. Just some calm, kind doctors keeping watch and some patients reading books together. It was almost a good time, though Musichetta wouldn’t go so far as to say that.

                “Sarah,” Musichetta implored, pointing to a word she didn’t understand. “What is… _robber_?”

                “A robber is a bad man,” Sarah explained patiently. “He steals.”

                Musichetta shook her head slowly. “ _A veces_ …stealing… _es_ …good,” she said, struggling to find the words to express herself. God - sometimes that was the most frustrating thing in the world, not being able to speak like a normal person. Spanish wasn’t encouraged and English was _much_ too difficult to keep up. She sighed.

                Sarah shook her head. “Stealing is bad, Musichetta. Very bad. That’s why I’m here.” Sarah was a little blonde kleptomaniac with a panic disorder and a tendency to swipe very valuable things. After stealing some sort of purebred dog worth thousands of dollars and then screaming “I’VE DONE WRONG!” in the middle of the street for about two hours straight, she’d been hauled off here.

                Musichetta sighed deeply again and closed the book. She’d been sadder than normal of late, and was wondering if perhaps she was finally succumbing to insanity. She’d had a feeling this would happen – if one was housed around loons long enough, one was likely to become a loon. It had been two years…two whole wasted years.           

                Dr. Joly, seeing Musichetta’s distress, raised a hand to silence Dr. Combeferre. He walked over to her and said something to Sarah and the blonde nodded, then walked off. He knelt down by Musichetta’s chair and smiled at her. “Is there something wrong, miss?” he asked.

                _Dios_. Dr. Joly was a handsome man. Musichetta was surprised at herself and her ability to find men attractive after being removed from them – other than therapists and doctors – for so long. She’d thought she wouldn’t care about things such as that anymore. But no. Dr. Joly and his gentle ways had charmed her for sure.

                She shook her head and tried to smile. “No, _Señor_ ,” she said quietly.  “ _Todo está bien_.” If he thought nothing was amiss, perhaps he would leave her alone. She looked around the library for an escape in case he didn’t leave her alone and found none.

                “No, miss, all is not well,” the doctor whispered. And the catch? He whispered it in Spanish! How a Frenchman knew English, French, _and_ Spanish was beyond her., but the joy it filled her with was unparalleled. “I’ve been observing you since I’ve come here, miss. I see your sorrow and it pains me. I know you are not mad, not in the slightest.”

                Musichetta looked into his eyes, shocked. She had never – not once in her two years in the madhouse – had any doctor tell her she was sane. She shook her head slowly, her mouth agape. “You think… _no soy_ … _loca_?” she stammered, tears in her eyes. Did this mean the kind doctor would let her free? Finally? She wanted to spring up and hug him violently, but that might be mistaken for an attack. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she chanted, grabbing one of his hands in hers and squeezing it.

                Dr. Joly nodded, seemingly moved by Musichetta’s intense display of gratitude. “You’re welcome, miss, most surely welcome. And no, I don’t think you are mad at all. We must do this quickly, now, so – in English – why are you here?”

                Musichetta squeezed the wicker arm of her chair, having let go of Dr. Joly’s hand. She knew why he wanted her to speak in English – they all did – but it still bothered her. Didn’t he see how hard it was? How taxing? She took a deep breath. “I am…of Mexico,” she began. “Mama, ah, _me quiso_ …” She didn’t know how to say what she needed to. For God’s sake, why did this always happen to her? _Why?_ It was awful enough, terrible enough, horrible enough to be stuck in an asylum. It was all enough to be surrounded by mad people day in and day out.  Enough to be treated like loon, like a deplorable member of society. But to be trapped behind a wall of language that she couldn’t climb over? That was the very worst.

                Dr. Joly nodded. “ _Mama wanted me_ ,” he corrected her kindly. “ _Querer_ translates to: to want. I’m sorry to make you explain this in English, Miss Musichetta, but if you’re speaking English at a strong enough level, we can get you out of here. Now speak.” He brushed back a strand of his orange-blonde hair, and Musichetta oddly wanted to do it for him.

                “Mama wanted me to work in America. Ah, we were not… _rico_ , uh...er…rich. Work, send money for my family. I…” She tried to recall a word she’d read, a good word that Dr. Joly probably didn’t expect her to know. She smiled. “I journeyed. Texas, New Mexico, long time. Oregon, at the end. I go to a…a factory. The _hombre_ , man…he…” She was suddenly at a loss for words.  “I…I do not know. _No_ _s_ _é_ …ah…” She mimed the last part, letting her left hand trail up her calf to her to her thigh, slowly pushing up her skirt. “After the factory man did it, I –” She then made her right hand into a fist, and slammed it down on her left somewhat savagely. “I…fight. Hard.” Then she looked back up at Dr. Joly. She shrugged at his horrified gaze. “The man did not like it. He…” She made another fist and grabbed at her hair, tugging. “Then I was on the floor. My head…hurt. Bloody. After, I er…slept and woke up here.”

                Dr. Joly sighed deeply and sadly. He asked the next part in rapid Spanish. “Miss, are you telling me that this man attempted to take advantage of you sexually and when you fought against him, he threw you to the floor?”

                “Yes,” Musichetta answered in English.

                “So, you were knocked unconscious?”

                “Yes.”

                “Do you know how you got here after that?”

                “Mama say...sometimes…if they do a bad thing in America, foreign ladies are taken here.” It was one of the longest sentences she’d managed, and she felt proud. “Ladies who don’t speak English. Taken away. People say ‘Mad! Loon! Crazy!’ but they don’t speak English and that is all. I think…that is me.”

                Dr. Joly, despite the grim topic, broke into a gigantic grin. “You’ve managed that whole thing in English! Wonderful!” he said in Spanish. “Musichetta, I am proud. And now I understand your predicament better. Miss, I will work as hard as I can to help you leave this place and get you back to your mother.”

                Musichetta took both of his hands this time and began to weep. “ _En serio_?” she choked. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. How can I…ah…give back to you?” The kind doctor’s cheeks turned a pleasing shade of scarlet as he reluctantly pulled his hands away.

                “We will, ah, see.” He brushed at a speck of dirt on the shoulder of his coat. “My friend, Dr. Etienne Combeferre, he will help you as much as he can. He’s a good man. Another therapist here, a one Nicolas Grantaire, a childhood friend of ours, he is a Frenchman as well. We French are an honest bunch. The three of us – well…I shouldn’t tell you this…you mustn’t repeat it to anyone. We are here to investigate. See if the asylum is treating its patients well and that. They’ve already got a strong strike against them, what with an innocent woman like yourself stuck here.”

                Musichetta was still weeping. She felt hope. Pure, joyful, simple hope. It was an emotion she hadn’t felt since the start of her journey to America two years ago. It was probably the best feeling in the entire world. She smiled at him with what she hoped conveyed even an ounce of the gratefulness she felt towards him. “You,” she said softly, “ _eres de dios_.”

                “All right, Doctor?” came a loud, gruff voice that startled the two of them. It was the voice of a one Dr. Percy Ricketts. He was a fat, balding Englishman whose disdain of the patients was no secret. He treated the patients like idiot children, even the most lucid of them. He was distrustful of doctors and therapists who treated them like normal people, suspecting they were “in league” or something like that.

                “Yes, thank you, Percy,” said Dr. Joly with forced patience. “I was just translating a passage of this book for Miss Musichetta here.” He picked up the children’s book about robbers she had been reading.

                Dr. Ricketts snatched the book and flipped through it, his face twisted with distaste. “Robbers, eh?” he said, squatting down and squinting at Musichetta through beady eyes. “Do you know what a robber is?” he said loudly to Musichetta, widening his squinty little eyes. She gritted her teeth and nodded. “What is a robber, then, girl?”

                “A bad man,” Musichetta answered. How demeaning, to be treated as if she knew nothing. She felt compelled to prove the fat doctor wrong. “A robber is a bad man who steals…a…” She struggled for the word. “A thief.”

                Dr. Ricketts harrumphed and straightened up. “A bit of advice, lad,” he said, turning to Dr. Joly. “Don’t waste your breath translating and that. Loons will be loons. Won’t retain much, this one, and if she does, it’ll be about robbing and stealing and other unsavory things. After all – this one, what is she?” Her squinted at Musichetta again, and she felt his eyes lingering on her breasts. “I believe she’s one of those Mexican girls. We called them brown bitches back home, we did. Oh, it was jolly fun.” He leaned down in Musichetta’s face. “Can’t understand a word I’m saying, can you, girl?”

                She was so enraged she was shaking, and had to dig her fingernails into her palm to keep herself from leaping at the doctor and ripping his throat out. How dare he degrade her like this? Judge her for her skin, call her crude names, and then…and then condescend to treat her like a simpleton. “I understand you,” she answered, praying to whatever God existed that her English wouldn’t fail her. She’d never needed it more. “You call me a ‘brown bitch.’  I call you a fat, ugly…” She needed one last word. But what was the English word for it?! Her cheeks were heating. Intolerant, that’s what he was. And he was _un intolerante_. What was the English word?!

                “Bigot,” Dr. Joly murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

                “Fat, ugly, bigot!” Musichetta hollered. She grinned fiercely at Dr. Ricketts.

                He sputtered, his face turning red like a sweaty tomato. Even his bald head was bright red. It was hilarious. Dr. Joly was fighting a smirk. Across the room. Dr. Combeferre, who’d been patiently listening to Sarah blather on, was  chuckling quietly to himself.

                “She’s a lunatic, this one!” he finally got out. “Laughing madly, look at her! She’s raving! Put her away!”

                “Yes, Doctor,” said Dr. Joly. He helped Musichetta out of the library, gripping her arms hard. Once they were in the deserted corridor, he smiled at her and let go. “You’re a brilliant girl, Miss Musichetta,” she said. “I apologize for his unkindness. He is ignorant and rude. I’m afraid I cannot take up for you, or else he will grow suspicious. We will limit our words to each other when Dr. Bigot is around.”

                Musichetta snorted. “Dr. Bigot?”

                “I’m sure I misheard, Miss,” Joly said, strolling down the corridor now, taking her to the dormitory. “Dr. Ricketts is his name.” With that, he nodded to Musichetta, smiled at her, and walked on.

                She returned to the room, sat on her bed, and buried her face in the pillow. She didn’t want anyone to hear her shouting with joy.

               


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm updating regularly now! Aren't you all proud? :P This chapter contains some graphic descriptions of violence and a mention of rape, plus some rape recovery. Some couples are getting closer to forming as well. 
> 
> Well...enjoy!
> 
> -Iris

Dr. Étienne Combeferre sat in the straight-backed chair in the small stone room. He watched the two sisters – they sat next to each other on the old chaise lounge, both silent, though a giggle would escape the older one’s mouth now and again. The younger girl was like a porcelain doll with her reddish-brown ringlets and big brown eyes. The older girl had a harder look about her. She was all sharp angles and unforgiving lines, with bracken-colored hair and black eyes like jagged flecks of obsidian.  He reached for his briefcase, opened it, found their case file. “AZELMA AND EPONINE THÉNARDIER” was emblazoned across the top. It listed them as fourteen and sixteen, respectively. _Diagnosed with hysteria from the aftermath of an assault by two men_ , the paper read. _The younger girl has retreated into her mind and reportedly hasn’t said a word since the incident. The elder has become manic and crazed. Often bursts into fits of laughter. Talks about “killing” the third attacker often._

 _Poor children,_ Combeferre thought. He looked up from the case file and tucked it away. “Hello,” he said with a kind smile. “My name is Étienne Combeferre.”

                The younger girl, Azelma, cracked a tiny smile but did not speak. The elder girl let loose a shrill giggle.

                “Well, let us start with the basics. You may call me Dr. Combeferre, or just by my last name. The title doesn’t matter, really. I am twenty-four years old and have just graduated Harvard College with a degree –”

                “D’you think we actually care?” Eponine laughed shrilly. “We don’t, doctor! What – d’you think you can fix us or somethin’? Be my guest, doc!”

                “I can’t _fix_ you, per se,” Combeferre admitted. “It’s not that simple. You and your sister aren’t broken teapots that one can paste back together, miss.” Eponine giggled at this. “You’re two individuals who have been through an extremely traumatic experience. I can’t fix you, but I can help you heal. And hopefully you two can help me along the way.” His spiel done, he smiled at the sisters, hoping his words could get through to them somehow.

                Azelma smiled again, looked to her sister, and then quickly let her countenance drop into a blank façade.

                _We’ll have a long way to go_ , Combeferre thought.

[123]

                Jean was standing with two dozen other men in the long room. The floor was an expanse of dirty wood and the walls were stone. It gave the impression of a long stone coffin. Jean’s beautiful braid had been shorn and he was looking a bit paler these days, but at least the staff had let him keep his own clothing. A boy called Marius said that they took the women’s clothes and because they were more likely to hang themselves with their pretty ribbons and such. That hardly seemed fair to Jean, seemed unjust, really. Despite this and the absence of his lovely hair, his time at the Abaissés Asylum hadn’t been horrible. He wondered why McGill, the man who’d ridden here in the carriage with him, had said it was hellish.

                The Abaissés was built like a castle, with large gray stones forming most of the exterior. The interior was furnished nicely enough, but everything tattered and outdated, or looked like it needed a good polishing. The floor they were standing on was no exception. He had made a friend, the soft-spoken Marius, and they had many pleasant conversations. The food was subpar but not terrible. In fact, it was a bit like his youth in France, when’d he’d gone to a camp every summer, only this time it was permanent.

                “Alright, gentlemen,” said their instructor, Mr. Tam. “That will be enough chatter.” No one had been talking. “Pick yourself a parter, then. Don’t be shy!” He grinned cheerfully at the group of silent, sullen men in front of him. Mr. Tam was the dance instructor that came to the asylum twice a week for an hour and a half, for “dance therapy.” Jean had been disbelieving at first, but it was actually quite fun. His only complaint was that he would have liked to dance with a lady, perhaps the little blonde beauty he’d seen roaming the halls, but only same-sex partners were allowed. Mr. Tam had explained that there were maniacs in the world, just waiting to assault the fairer sex. “Well,” he’d said, blustering a bit at the raised eyebrows and cool stares that had met his remark, “I don’t mean you boys – oh, come now, I don’t mean you. Rules, however…well…they’re the rules!”

                 Now, Mr. Tam grinned again the young men. He was an elderly gentleman with a wizened face and long silver hair that he kept tied like a woman’s. He was a bit arrogant, but well-meaning enough. “C’mon, lads! We don’t have all day, now, that’s it.” A large, muscular boy had just picked a sleepy loon to be his partner. “Be a sport like Victor and Masselin, why don’t you. Picking your partner doesn’t mean you’re to marry him,” he chuckled, “just means you’ll be dancing.”

                The black-haired boy, Marius, smiled shyly at Jean. “W-would you c-c-c-care f-for this-this d-d-dance, Jean?” he asked.

                “Delighted,” Jean smiled. Marius near his own age, just a few years older, actually, with a similar disorder. It was a stressful friendship, but a nice one.

                Eventually everyone partnered up and Mr. Tam boomed, “Alrighty, then, gentlemen, alrighty! Let us begin! Can anyone tell me what we worked on last time?”

                “The American waltz,” Masselin said dreamily.

                “Yes, my boy, correct! Today, we’ll begin work on the Viennese waltz. It’s fast and a bit difficult, but I’ve got full confidence in you, boys.” He put a record on the battered gramophone and some classical music wafted out of it. “Now, boys,” he shouted over the music, “take your partner’s arm! Yes, there you go. We’ll walk to the center – slowly, now, formally. You’re aristocrats in this room, lads. Gentlemen dancing the lady’s part, you’ll lift you left knee as you walk. High in the air. No, don’t kick the light fixtures, Eddie! Oh, Lord, you’ve broken it. No – no, it’s just fine. Don’t worry, lad, calm yourself. We’ll keep walking to center, yes. Here – we’ve arrived. Now turn to face your parter. Seamless transition, gentlemen, just like we talked about! Yes, good job, Marius! Bow, bow, there you are.”               And so it went. They learned the dance and it felt almost joyful. Jean spun Marius and watched his expression transform from consternation to something happy and innocent. Round and round they went, their feet spinning them in circles. Jean spent the hour and a half murmuring, “One-two-three, one-two-three” to himself, comforted by the organized repetition. Everyone was smiling by the end of the lesson and they even gave Mr. Tam a round of applause.

                “Ah, thank you, boys, thank you. Oh, stop it.” The old man grinned, enjoying the attention. “Well, then! Gents, I’ll see you next Tuesday!” He packed up and left, shaking hands and giving witty advice to the young men as he bustled out of the long room. After the door closed, the two dozen men were left to their own devices. It wouldn’t be long, they knew, until an orderly came in to usher them off to other activities, but the freedom was delectable.

                “We could do anything we want,” said Eddie in an awed tone. It was the first thing he’d said since he’d broken the light fixture with a too-enthusiastic kick and he’d calmed down considerably. The boy’s full name was Edgar Edwards III, and he was sixteen years old. He was a clumsy, sweet chap who Jean liked quite a bit.

                Jean grinned. They _could_ do anything they wanted. Have a race down the length of the room, host another dance lesson, have a fight. He smirked at that thought…then something dark and frantic clouded his mind. The orderlies didn’t want them causing mischief – he knew that. Why was he laughing at that? That was awful, immoral… _dishonest_. Fighting was almost a crime. Causing a person harm was an awful thing to do. It was the epitome badness. Jean wasn’t bad. _Not bad, just useless._ He froze in place, stiller than a statue but for his chest rising and falling at the pace of a frantic jackrabbit. His heart was pounding and his vision went blurry. His breath came faster and faster.

                Marius turned blithely, obliviously to his friend. “Th-th-that l-l-lesson was qu-quite f-f-fun,” he said, and then caught sight of Jean’s state. “J-J-Jean?” he stammered, turning red and blotchy. “A-are you af-af-a-afflicted?” Marius’s breath came nearly as fast as Jean’s, though the boy had the added disadvantage of being asthmatic. “D-d-don’t w-w-w-worry,” he gasped with a strained smile. “I-I’m fine! I-it’s nothing, n-nothing. H-h-hardly a-a st-stutter.”

                _You’re causing him worry and distress. Look at him – red in the face and he can hardly breathe and still he assures you. He’s worried for you, fool. You know his lack of breath could lead to an attack. He’s nearly there, isn’t he? Dear God. Jean Prouvaire, what is wrong with you? Why are you so useless? You ruin everything that is good. No wonder Mama kicked you out._ Jean let out a quiet sob as these thoughts pummeled him. The men around this were somehow unaware of the pair’s distress. Perhaps because they were both stock still. _He could die from lack of breath. Snap out of it, you useless, dishonest, impolite clod!_ Jean thought at himself. _Do you want to kill him? Do you hear me? HE COULD DIE._

                Miraculously, this was enough to snap him from his fit. His breathing slowed, his heart shuttered to a normal beat, and his limbs unfroze. He took a few tentative steps to Marius. “I am alright, Marius,” he murmured. “It is alright. Just a bit of a fit. I am alright now. Slow your breathing, _mon ami_. That’s it.” He continued to murmur soft reassurances to the boy until his ragged, painful breathing slowed and his cheeks turned a semi-normal color. When Marius was sufficiently calmed, Jean smiled apologetically. “I feel just terrible that you had to see me in that manner, especially since it sparked your own…affliction. I am ever so sorry.”

                “Y-you’re s-s-s-sorry?” Marius said incredulously. “N-no n-n-need. M-my m-m-madness is my own.”

                With that, several orderlies entered the room and took the gentlemen to their listed activities, silencing the conversation. Jean had an hour of free time before their midday meal and he sat on his cot as he watched the men move around him like specters. He was left with far too much time in his own head and looking for a way out of it when a random boy came and set down on the cot across from him. He was clad in surprisingly fancy clothes and had an air of slight arrogance about him. He had curly black hair and big green eyes.

                “Hello,” he smiled. “Couldn’t help but notice you haven’t been looking good this afternoon.” When he smiled, two dimples formed in his rosy cheeks.

                “No,” Jean said, guarded. “I suppose not. Thank you for your concern.”

                “Of course! If we’re stuck here ‘n all, it’s the least I can do to be genial. Loons need to look out for one another, eh?”

                “I – I suppose.”

                “I know you’re Jean Prouvaire. My name is Robin de Courfeyrac.” The boy waited for his name to register something with Jean. When it didn’t, he sighed, but took it in stride. “Of the de Courfeyrac line? Each man a prestigious millionaire? Owners of half the banks in America?”

                “I…I am terribly sorry – I do not mean to be impolite – I am so sorry if I offend…” Jean stammered. “I…I’ve never heard of you.” He flushed and began to breathe a tad faster.

                “It’s alright!” the boy said with a charming grin. “You’re not being impolite, Jean. You’re French, yeah?” At Jean’s trembling nod, Robin de Courfeyrac’s grin devoured his face. “Oh, I love the French! When I was a boy, dear old Dad had French delegates over a few times a month. Really impolite folks, but good for a laugh. But you – you’re polite. You’re very sweet.”

                Jean smiled, his face still red, though not from distress. “ _Merci_ ,” he said.

                “Ah, aren’t you a charmer!” Robin de Courfeyrac cried with a wink. “So, you’ve never heard of us – and it’s really alright, _ami_!” There was a moment of companionable silence. “If we’re getting cozy here, care to here my little story of madness?” Robin asked.

                “Er…if you would care to tell it,” Jean said.

                “Sure! Narcissistic chap like myself…well, I talk about myself each chance I can get! Now, let us have a bit of background, firstly…”

                _At ten years old, Robin de Courfeyrac knew that he was a very important person. He was the eldest son, the heir to the de Courfeyrac fortune, and the leader for all of his younger siblings. This whole lot of responsibility led to the knowledge of how very important he was. He had to act best as the eldest, most intelligent as the heir, and most leader-like for the little ones. There was eight-year-old Pearl, six-year-old Samuel, four-year-old Ernest, two-year-old John, and the infant Freda. Mama had the habit of having her children exactly two years apart, so Robin knew he’d have a lot of siblings to serve as an example for by the time she stopped having children. Mama told him that he’d had quite the fit when she told him he would be an older sibling the first time. Though he couldn’t remember it, it caused him quite a bit of second-hand shame, and he resolved to never place his mother’s affections in that high a regard ever again._

_It was father’s attention he really coveted, and he was granted this affection only when he said something particularly witty or charmed a guest. The rest of his siblings seemed slightly afraid of Father, especially Samuel, so they busied themselves trying to vie for Mama’s frayed affections._

_Robin didn’t really need love or care – he was an independent child. In fact, the company of others – save for his father and his beloved younger sister – quite irritated him. Even his tutors left him well enough alone, so he had almost complete control over his education. Instead of wasting time on memorizing Latin hymns, his special focus of study was famous generals and their tactics to win wars. He idolized the most ruthless, the most cunning, but especially the most charming. If he wasn’t destined to own a large number of banks, Robin would have liked to go to war and command a large number of men, men who were completely and utterly loyal to him. And only him! Or else!_

_One day, he was sitting with Pearl in his bedroom, teaching her about the great Roman emperor Nero. “Little Pearl,” Robin said, “Nero was a great leader. Know why?”_

_Pearl shook her head. She was a beautiful child – long, flowing black locks and giant green eyes with skin of the most delicate porcelain hue. Robin thought that when she came of age, Father would have her married off right away. “Why was he a great leader, Binny?” she asked all big eyes and feigned innocence._

_“He had power,” Robin said, a glint in his eye. “Power and no fear of cruelty.”_

“So you see, Jean,” Robin said conversationally, “I was an intelligent little scapegrace. I could recite every Roman emperor with a penchant for murder just as fast as I could Bible verses. I was a trickster. Played the dutiful son, y’know?”

                “Yes,” Jean said, unnerved.

                “Anyhow, I taught Pearl everything I knew, which was a lot. She was my closest friend – only friend, really. Couldn’t stand the younger siblings. They were all cowards. I remember…Samuel was terrified of our father. Ernest cried whenever the lamps got put out. John, well, it’s a little fuzzy. I remember…he wet the bed. Mama couldn’t stand it. And Freda was an infant, just a little baby, when I left. D’you know how long I’ve been at the Abaissés, Jean?”

                “No, Robin.”

                “Eight years. I grew up here, really. Got shipped off just a bit after I turned ten.”

                “Good lord,” Jean murmured. “Why?”

                “Ah, well, a lonely and narcissistic boy who liked to read about cruel generals…it wasn’t a wonderful combination. “One of the maids found me cutting up the neighbor’s kittens. I got locked away inside after that a lot, but Father couldn’t exactly ship me off. I was, after all, the heir.” He grinned charmingly again. “When I didn’t act out again for a few weeks, they just put it aside as a scientific mind. Like I was interested in anatomy.” He chuckled. “No – I was a little devil. No other word for it, Jean, I was a devil. I chopped up cats, dogs, mice, even all of the pretty little koi in Mrs. Smith’s pond. After that – if you’ll believe it, I formed a militia. All my siblings, even little John, plus the neighbor children. Spoilt brats with a hate for the poor. Ah, the children we harassed, beat…what a time. When this was found out, of course, they locked all of us away. Didn’t go outside for months. Well, you can imagine that didn’t sit well with me. It was the final straw when my dear mother found me trying to cut up Freda. And…well…y’know, I’ve been here since!” He finished his tale with a charming grin and misty eyes.

                “Oh…oh,” Jean murmured.

                “I’m better now, aren’t I?” Robin said, looking a bit annoyed. “I haven’t tried to attack someone in months – months. But because Father made the head of Abaissés, Javert, my legal guardian, I am stuck here until he sees fit to let me go.” He frowned. “It gets dull sometimes. Y’know, I don’t think I’ve had a friend since I came here. Not a true one, anyway. The other sadists ‘n sociopaths – even that beautiful little blonde – think I’m too caring and the rest are afraid of me. Grim fate, eh?”

                Jean, pale as a sheet, nodded. He was silent for a long time. “Are you lonely?” he whispered.

                “Oh, yes. Half-sociopathic and half-empathetic. It’s a lonely life, my sweet Frenchman.”

                “Would you…like to be my friend?”

                Robin paled. “You’d be my friend?”

                “Well…yes. I am alone save for Marius. It is a lonely life, as you say. If we can reach an understanding where you do not attack me and I do not have a fit each time I talk to you, I believe we can be friends. It would be good. But would you befriend my Marius?” Jean’s voice was strong and clear and he felt proud of himself.

                “The freckly boy? The pale one?”

                “ _Oui_.”

                Robin de Courfeyrac chuckled. “He looks like a delectable little doe. I’d be delighted.”

                There was something in his grin Jean found frightening.

[123]

                When Sousy opened her eyes, she was strapped to a bed and Montparnasse was nowhere to be found. Though her mind felt like a mud puddle, her first thought was that ‘Parnasse had been killed and they were about to do the same to her. _Best to die with dignity_ , she thought. _See you soon ‘Parnasse, Carlisle._

“Oh, you’re awake,” came a voice.

                The face of a pale young man with green eyes and ginger-blonde hair filled her vision. He had a small dusting of freckles across his nose, and when she smiled at her, she saw that there was a gap between his front teeth. “Good morning, miss. You’ve been out quite a while.” He had a heavy French accent.

                She opened her mouth to ask “Where am I?” but all that came out was a croak.

                “Rest easy, miss. You’re alright. We’ll explain everything.” The ginger-blonde man walked off for a moment and came back with a rickety chair. He sat down and smiled. “This is the Abaissés Asylum for the Mentally Ill. You’re in Oregon, miss. Word is they’ve shipped you and your gentleman friend up from Chicago.”

                “M-Mont,” Sousy stammered.

                “Is that his name? Mont?” the doctor asked. With no response from Sousy, he soldiered on. “It’s alright. We’ll have lots of time to get acquainted. My name is Lucien Joly. I’m a doctor here. Miss, do you know why you’re here?”

                Sousy couldn’t move her head. There were heavy straps pinning each body part to the bed. She managed to rasp, “No.”

                “Well, we’ve got a story, but we’ll need your help to fill in the details. I’m afraid I can’t let you up just yet. You’ve been restrained because you were trying to attack anyone who laid a hand on you.”

                Sousy smiled. Montparnasse would be proud of her resisting that way. Then she frowned. But he’d be disappointed to see her get captured in the first place. She could almost hear his smooth voice turned mocking, see his beautiful features twisted in a sneer as he harangued her. _Really, Sousy? You let them throw you in the loony bin_? But he wasn’t here. It was just her. Where was he? So many questions were buzzing around in Sousy’s mind that she didn’t know where to start. Before she asked any question, she knew she needed to get up. Her throat felt parched and rough, her eyes were crusty, and she felt a burning need to be free. “D-doctor,” she wheezed, “please.” Her voice was rough from disuse. _How long have I been out?_ “Water. C-could I please have some water?”

                “Of course,” the doctor smiled kindly. He left the room for a moment and came back with a cracked glass filled with dusty water. “Sorry for the state of your water,” he apologized.  “Everything here is a bit rickety. Well, open up, miss.”  Sousy kept her lips closed.

                “Spare me,” she said, displeased. “I’m already strapped to a table in the loony bin with no memory of how I got here. Least you could do is let me sip my own water.”

                The doctor chuckled. “Well, I see your voice has come back, miss.” He looked rueful, apologetic even. “I’m under strict orders to keep you strapped down until you are calmed and chock full of morphine. I’m sorry.”

                “Is that why I can’t remember anything?” Sousy asked shrewdly.

                “Yes,” the doctor – Joly – said. “You’re astute, miss. I think…well…I have a proposition for you. If you can promise you’ll be still and won’t accost me, I’ll unstrap you.”

                “I’ll be good.” Sousy hated being at this man’s whims, like some kind of plaything. He unstrapped her slowly, cautiously, and before he unstrapped the binding across her forehead, he caught her eye with an unfathomably sad look in his own.

                “There are you, miss,” Joly said.

                “Thank you.” Sousy grabbed the glass and gulped down the dusty water. Her burning throat felt a bit better, and she drank down each glass Dr. Joly put in front of her until she had gone through five of them.

                “I’d stop now, miss. You’ve been out quite a while. Don’t want to overload your body.”

                Sousy shrugged and handed the cracked glass off to the doctor. “So, then. I’m at an asylum in Oregon. You know I’ve got questions, yes?”

                “I’m sure.”

                “Firstly, where’s my…” How should she finish that question without giving away too much? “My gentleman,” she decided. “Where is he?”

                “Your gentleman friend is in the next room over. He’s perfectly fine, don’t worry, miss. The only injuries he’s sustained were self-inflicted. By accident, of course,” the doctor added quickly at Sousy’s look of distress. “Your friend fought harder than any patient I’ve ever heard of, miss. He killed one of the policemen who took the two of you away. He resisted with everything he had. Kept screaming that he needed ‘Sousy.’ Couldn’t let her go, couldn’t let them hurt his girl. Is that you, then, Sousy?”

                Sousy nodded. “Yes, I’m Sousy. For formality’s sake, my real name is Claquesous. You’re French, right? I changed it to make it easier for American men to pronounce when I was…” She trailed off, not wanting to reveal more.

                “I am French, yes. I understand the need to make a name easier to pronounce. You would be surprised the trouble people have with Lucien.” Joly chuckled. “Claquesous – is that your first name, or last?” He paused and then smiled sheepishly. “Expect many more probing questions, miss. If it were my choice, I wouldn’t be asking you all of this. I’d be satisfied with Sousy, but the folks here are very…particular. I need to know your name, age, affliction, et cetera. But for now…name and age will suffice.”

                “I’m twenty-two. For the name…I…I’m unsure. It was the only name my mother left me with.” Her gaze hardened. “But…that isn’t your business. Just because you know my name and – and you’re a doctor…it doesn’t mean anything. You don’t know me. You just got lucky and captured us. I’ve been captured plenty of times in my life. We’ll get away soon, you’ll see.” Sousy could feel desperation rising in her chest like a tidal wave. She felt the sudden urge to strike the doctor.

                “Miss,” Joly begged, “please calm yourself or I’ll have to strap you down again. I’m not here to do you ill. I am, in fact, the best hope you’ve got of ever leaving this asylum. I and another doctor, Étienne Combeferre – remember that name – are the doctors to turn to. Allow me to monologue for a moment, Miss Sousy. I will attempt to explain everything.”

                _The young policeman, Sasaki, was walking down the street with his partner, Daniels, when he heard the piercing scream. They exchanged a look. It was always this part of town that they found crime. The scream was heard again. Sasaki put a hand on his pistol and nodded to Daniels. “We should check the trouble,” he said in his thick Japanese accent._

_Daniels, who did not ever talk, nodded. A nice partnership the two shared. Daniels didn’t mock Sasaki’s heavy accent, and Sasaki didn’t pressure Daniels to speak. The two men, with pistols drawn, crept towards the origin of the sound, a street side garret with a heavy front door. Another scream punctuated the muggy afternoon air. As they came closer, the two could hear muffled shouting from inside, what sounded like a couple of girls. When they were just outside the door, they could very clearly hear the commotion and the words that came with it._

_A male voice was screaming, “YOU TOOK HER! YOU TOOK HER FROM ME WHEN SHE WAS JUST A CHILD! LOOK AT HER – LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE!”_

_Another male voice, this one sounding agonized, was screaming, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” over and over._

_As the policemen burst into the house, they were met with a horrifying sight. A man was on the floor. His stomach had been torn open and intestines, like slimy, gray snakes, were decorating the floor around him. His blood was slowly spreading over the hardwood floor like a great red butterfly. Another man stood above him. He was skinny, angular, beautiful. His long black hair was tangled and his long-fingered hands were stained with blood. “You’re sorry?” he cackled. He grabbed one of the man’s intestines in his hand and tugged sharply. The man – and the two girls in the house– shrieked._

_Sasaki had to stop himself from retching. “Put your hands in the air!” he cried, and cocked his pistol. Daniels cocked his pistol as well._

_“Hello, officers,” the beautiful killer grinned drunkenly._

_And before Sasaki could blink, Daniels was staggering, clutching at his throat. He fell to his knees, croaking and gurgling around the knife that had been flung there. Sasaki shot – and soon he was on the ground too, tugging a knife from his chest. This knife had flung a bit less expertly, but it had certainly stopped the officer from proceeding with his arrest._

_As Daniels choked on his own blood, Sasaki watched with darkening vision as the black-haired killer grinned. “Just a diversion,” he said. “Back to business.”_

_“P-please!” begged one of the girls. She was in a wheelchair, missing one leg. She was straining to keep a grip on a young adolescent girl with long black hair and crystal blue eyes. She could have been the sister of the killer._

_“Monty!” the struggling adolescent screamed. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” The girl wore the makeup and revealing dress of a whore. Sasaki felt pity for her and the crippled girl._

_“Montparnasse!” the crippled girl screamed. “STOP IT! FOR GOD’S SAKE, STOP! YOU’RE SCARING HER!  Clarisse is TERRIFIED!”_

_The young man stopped torturing the older one and turned to look at the adolescent – Clarisse. Something in his devilish expression changed. “Clarisse…don’t be scared, baby,” he begged imploringly, stretching out his bloody hands to her. Clarisse flinched away from him and buried her head in the bosom of the crippled girl. “Clarisse…I’m doing this for you. He…he made you his whore. Don’t you want revenge? He…he took you from me, baby. He ruined both our lives. Look – look, sweetie, I’ll finish quickly. I’ll kill him now. Then it can be just you and me – and Sousy, of course. Sousy and I can take care of you. We’ll be together again. Brother and sister again. Clarisse, baby…I’m doing this for you.” He turned to the man, grabbed Sasaki’s discarded gun, and shot him in the head. Both girls screamed. “There – it’s done! I’ll just get rid of the body. Of all the bodies. Then we can all get cleaned up and I’ll get you outta those clothes. It’s okay, sweetie. It’s all okay now."_

_Sasaki could hear sirens wailing in the distance as his vision finally blacked out._

“And so,” said Dr. Joly softly, “the police came and took all of you away. The boy was completely raving at this point. The little girl was utterly terrified. She was sobbing. She would not let go of you. You were silent. We thought he had scarred both of you forever – but when they tried to separate the three of you, you lashed out and attacked them all. I am told you were like a…what did the Japanese officer say…a hellcat.”

                Sousy felt tears burning her eyes. “Clarisse is his sister,” she said softly, and because she had nothing else to lose, she launched into an explanation. She told the doctor of her time as a whore, of how her feet had become terribly infected, and how she’d been kicked out with nothing. She described her meeting with Montparnasse and how he was just a scared child. “He was just twelve,” she said fondly. “I was seventeen. He’d been beat – big swollen knots all over his face and one of his eyes was swelled shut. He was so scared, so sad. He dragged himself over to me. Said that he knew I was a whore and he’d blackmail me with the fact unless I helped him find her, Clarisse. He was so earnest, made me laugh. He didn’t tell me much, but I gathered that they were runaways. Some men took her – she was just nine – and he followed them to a big warehouse where they kept the little girls they’d taken.” She went on to describe her fondness for the angry boy, how they’d become friends. She told the doctor of her little beau, Carlisle, and how the names Clarisse and Carlisle became a sacred pact among the two.

                “He always promised me,” Sousy said dully, “that he’d kill the man who shot my Carlisle. When he was fourteen, he found him somehow. He killed him, alright, bare-handed too. Clarisse being stolen – it broke him. He wanted so badly to be good and noble, but he did it wrong. ‘Parnasse wasn’t meant for this life. I was – I knew how to survive in the streets without losing every crumb of humanity, but ‘Parnasse… he just didn’t. The underworld is seductive…” She stopped talking and took a moment to regain some control of her emotions. She went on and on, telling how Montparnasse had fallen in love with her, and her with him, but how she knew they could never have a relationship. “He doesn’t care that I’m crippled and pretty much useless. He – he’d push around in my chair and fight anyone who even looked at me funny.” She finally told of how he never stopped looking for his little sister, even though Sousy was sure the girl was dead.

                “The last thing I remember from normality is kissing him. The next day, when I woke up, ‘Parnasse was gone. Didn’t come back for three days, but when he did, he was dragging in a prostitute and this big man. He was maniacal. Kept screaming, ‘I found her, Sousy, I found her!’ Poor Clarisse was terrified. The arrest…it’s coming back to me now.” With that, Sousy began to retch and vomited over the side of the table she’d been sitting on. She felt sick, tired, and sad. “He’s crazy,” she said with a dry sob. “He’s completely mad. I can get out of here eventually, maybe even Clarisse, but…he’s never getting out, is he?”

                Dr. Joly’s sad look was answer enough. “And…miss…there’s another thing. I do not want to do this you when you’ve been through so much trauma, but…”

                “Just say it. What else’ve I got to lose?”

                “If you insist…your feet, you say, were infected after stepping on a sharp object in an alleyway?”

                “Yes.”

                “Well, Miss Sousy, the doctor who amputated your left leg wasn’t thorough enough. I believe…you…miss…your right leg – up to the knee – will have to go as well.” The doctor looked so sorrowful that Sousy felt the odd urge to cry for him.

                She smiled and shrugged. Just as the full reality of this hell hit her, she blacked out.        

                 

               

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone. Thank you for staying with this story even though updates have been sparse! I do have a good reason, though, I promise. My boyfriend just got back from a month of study in Japan and he missed our year and a half anniversary (for lack of a better word). We've been spending time together and going on adventures after a long month apart. Only three days into that, though I had to go to Texas for a week. I was visiting family and then had to help my dad with a convention. I got to schmooze with rich people and talk folks into buying our stuff. It was the time of my life, actually! Then I had to go to a Methodist church camp and watch little kids, so it was just a busy couple weeks!! 
> 
> All of that aside, enjoy this chapter!

Dr. Joly and Musichetta were walking down a long, castle-like corridor, bantering amiably and playing language games. He was pointing to various things within the hall and she would tell him the name of the object in English. So far she had named “window” and “carpet” with no trouble. She’d encountered a bit more trouble with “bars” and “stone.”

                “You may have had a victory with the carpet, but now I’ve got a tricky one for you, Miss Musichetta,” the doctor grinned, and pointed to a faded tapestry hanging near a window. It was one of seven hanging along the hall. They told the story of a hunt for a unicorn. This one featured a unicorn sitting calmly inside a circular paddock, as it had finally been caught. Behind the unicorn’s prison, beautiful flowers flourished and verdant greenery was in abundance. Even though the unicorn was trapped, it appeared perfectly content. In fact, it had a somewhat unsettling smile upon its face. “What is this?” Joly asked.

“Picture or object?” Musichetta asked in return. She didn’t know either, but it never hurt to try.  She gave a sudden hum as an idea hit her. “Doctor, the picture…is _una metáfora_. In English…I do not know, but I will try. _El unicornio_ is in a cage. Is…catch…catched…” She stopped speaking, frustrated.                   

“Caught,” the doctor suggested kindly.                   

“Yes, caught. _El unicornio_ is caught. Not free. _Para siempre_ , forever, I think. But…it is smiling. Happy to be caged. I think…they want the patients to see. Turn into the _unicornio_ , happy to be caged. Less…fighting and...” A word came to her, one she had read only once but had stuck with her since. “No resistance.”

 Joly frowned, ready to retort, and then fell silent. “Let’s keep walking,” he said quietly. The two walked down the hall in silence. Joly’s mind was whirring. What an astute observation Musichetta had made. If the weak-minded saw an image of a fantastical beast rejoicing in his captivity, then perhaps they would become more compliant. It was a smart tactic, but a heartless one. Joly was mulling this over when Musichetta let out a cry. He looked up just in time to see a gray-and-brown blur flying towards him and then he was on the ground.

Musichetta let out another strangled cry.  One of the loons had come tearing down the corridor and then tackled Dr. Joly to the ground. “Get off!” she screamed, her voice shaky and scared. “Get off!” She unstuck her feet from the ground and dashed over to the now struggling pair. She caught hold of a flailing arm and tugged hard. Judging by the cry that came from Dr. Joly’s mouth, she’d grabbed the wrong arm. “Sorry!” Musichetta cried, and tried grabbing a leg. She pulled as hard as she could – pulled so hard that the loon who’d been covering Dr. Joly with his body came off like water off a slick surface.                   

The loon flipped over to his back and looked at Musichetta with gigantic, terrified eyes. He was a young African-American man with a shaved head clad in torn clothes that looked terribly familiar. “Please, ma’am, please,” he cried. “Don’t hurt me! I didn’t mean it, truly! I – I didn’t mean to hurt the doctor, I swear, ma’am.” He looked as if he was about to cry. “Don’t send me back to the head-shockers, please! I was running from her again, see. She won’t leave me be.” Tears ran down his face as she shook. “She won’t leave me be…”

Dr. Joly got up and dusted himself off and knelt down to the young man. “We won’t hurt you, my friend. Miss Musichetta come here, kneel with me. Our friend is obviously in distress. We must show him we mean him no harm.”                   

 _Don’t know about that_ , Musichetta thought, who would have liked to clobber the raving man for knocking over her handsome doctor. _Stop thinking thoughts like that, you silly girl!_ she quickly admonished herself. _He’s not yours in any way._ She obeyed Joly and sank down on the other side of the man.

“My name is Lucien Joly. This here is Miss Musichetta. What is your name?”                   

“Lesgle de Meaux,” the man answered warily, “b-but I’m known as Bossuet to my friends. But…be honest. Don’t try to placate me. Are you gonna send me back to the head-shockers?”                   

“Head-shockers?” Musichetta repeated slowly. Clearly this Bossuet was one of the really mad ones. He seemed to be suggesting…well…’Chetta wasn’t exactly sure what a “head-shocker” was, but it just sounded made up and mad. She felt a tinge, albeit a tiny one, of remorse for thinking of the man as a loon. She felt like she should have a bit more compassion for her fellow patients after spending the last two years shut up like them, treated differently like them, undergoing hours of useless therapy like them, but she still thought of herself as _Other_. Because she wasn’t mad, because she didn’t need to be shut up. It had all been a mistake, really. And she’d be out of the asylum soon enough anyway, and then she wouldn’t have to sympathize with a bunch of crazy folks ever again.                    

And besides, why should she feel for this man? He’d knocked Joly over and given her the fright of a lifetime. He’d interrupted her precious time with him, which she only got once a week or so for hardly an hour. She needed that time – to discuss how she’d get out, to learn new words, and come up with a good enough vocabulary to talk her way out of tricky situations if need be.                   

“Yes,” the man – Bossuet – murmured, “head-shockers. It’s awful. They strap you down on a big-long table, straps all across your body – even your head. Can’t even tilt your head a tiny bit. Then they stick big sticky suction all over your head and ZAP! They shock you and shock you until you’re not but a quivering ball of mush.” He shuddered and crossed himself. “They take you away. Your mind, I mean. They ruin your mind to make you sane again. If that don’t work, then they send you away to another big-long table and scoop out part of your brain. Turns you into a ghost. You eat, sleep, bodily function and all that, but nothin’ else. You don’t think. You don’t feel. You don’t… _nothing_.”  He began to cry even harder. The boy was the picture of vulnerability – lying on his back, sobbing, begging not to be tormented.                    

Musichetta suddenly realized where she’d seen Bossuet before and wanted to kick herself for spurning him like some kind of idiot. It seemed like a lifetime ago when she had been sitting in front of the asylum watching the new patients come in. She had observed the beauty of a young African-American man and lamented to herself that he was locked away in the asylum. She’d been feeling sad and moony that day, but had quickly cut that emotion off. And now she was struck by the boy’s tender beauty once again. He had big doe eyes and cheekbones so high and lovely that they looked like glass. He had a long nose and a wide mouth that would have looked much better around a grin than a sob.                    

She was shaken out of her thoughts by Dr. Joly’s gentle voice. “We won’t send you away, my friend. Be easy. I am a doctor – I can help you. And Miss Musichetta here, well, she is kind and she will help you too. I am helping her now.”                    

“Y-you won’t send me to the head-shockers?” Bossuet stammered.                    

Musichetta shook her head. She knelt down and took Bossuet’s hands in hers, feeling terribly sad, empathetic, and just a bit moony again. “I do not speak English well, but it is alright. Doctor Joly _y yo vamos a_ …help you.” She looked to Joly and asked in rapid Spanish, “Is there someplace we can take him to calm him down a bit? And perhaps hide him from any orderlies. I was screaming to beat the band. I’m surprised there isn’t anyone here already.”                   

Joly chuckled and answered in equally rapid Spanish, “Yes, I believe there are a lot of unused rooms here. I think in the original construction of the asylum, patients weren’t meant to sleep communally.”                   

Bossuet looked between the two, his eyes big. “Are you speaking Spanish?” he asked.                    

“Yes,” Dr. Joly said. “I speak English, French, and Spanish. Miss Musichetta here is working on English. Now come along. We’re going to go to a private room, just the three of us, Bossuet.” Musichetta and Joly offered the boy a hand and he took both, pulling himself up. As they walked to the next empty room, Bossuet didn’t let go of their hands.

[123]

Sousy wheeled herself down the long, empty hall, wondering how life has come to this. She’d been happy once, had a mother and father who cared for her. It was a dim, hardly-there memory, but she knew it had happened. She remembered a soft hand cupping her face, the smell of cheap perfume that tried its best to be Chanel, and a big, toothy smile that belonged to a kind man. But that was all. How, she wondered, had it been that she had once been a happy little girl and now she was a useless cripple in a madhouse? Why had she been put out in the streets at the tender age of six? Why had she turned to prostitution as a starving thirteen-year-old? Why was –?                   

The cheap wheels of her new chair snagged on an uneven stone and she nearly went tumbling out. Sousy righted herself and held back something that was either a sob or a scream.  As she wheeled herself onwards, she turned her thoughts to Montparnasse. It was forbidden for men and women in the asylum to interact, and she hadn’t even caught a glimpse of him in the days since her operation. _Oh, ‘Parnasse…what’ve you gotten us into this time?_ she thought mournfully. She neared the end of the hall and was about to turn the corner when two girls came drifting down the hall towards her. One of them looked about Clarisse’s age, the other not much older.                    

“Well, well,” chuckled the older one. “What happened to _you_?”                   

Sousy wasn’t in a mood to talk, not even to curse the girl for her rudeness. She just shrugged.                   

“Oh, not your legs, idiot. I don’t care what happened to your legs. That’s a sob story for another day.” The girl let loose a shrill giggle and looked slightly embarrassed for a moment before sneering again. “My question is what brought you in here. You’ve got that _profound sorrow_ look on – I see it on a couple of people here. Generally life’s dealt you a bad turn and you don’t deserve to be in the loony bin. That right?” She giggled loudly again until she was gasping for breath.                    

Sousy could have slapped the girl…but then she noticed something. Her eyes were wide and flitted from corner to corner like she expected someone to come out of the walls and attack her. Her body was twitchy and she looked ready to run. The most interesting – and probably saddest – thing Sousy noticed was that the girl was completely covering the younger one. She stood directly in front of her, and every time the younger one moved to the side, the elder adjusted her position.                    

Instead of making Sousy feel bad, it made her angry. “Charming,” she said flatly. “You’re nothing new, y’know. I’ve seen girls like you my whole life where I’m from. I know you’re not as tough as you act and I know you’re just a broken little girl.”                   

The girl tried to turn her high-pitched laughter into a snort. “Playing therapist, are you?”                     

Sousy laughed grimly. “I’ll wager a guess about your life and you tell me if I’m right. Let’s see…been through some unspeakable trauma, that’s obvious. You’re what – fifteen, sixteen? How about this – you spent your whole life taking care of people when you’re really too young to take care of yourself. You had a tough exterior because you were hardened. Now you’re here and you’re barely hanging on to your mind. I bet you want to die most days. Of course, you can’t off yourself because of this one here. I’m assuming you’re sisters. So, let’s see. You want to protect your sister from everything but it’s pretty obvious you failed there. And I’m betting that you left others behind, others you were supposed to protect. You feel like you failed them all and you’re going crazy.”                   

The girl was stunned into silence for a moment before another giggle escaped her.                     

“And you, O silent one – you’re the baby sister,” Sousy said to the younger girl. “Let’s see. Classic sob story – you used to be happy and now you’re here. Your sister has taken care of you your whole life and you always wanted to be independent but couldn’t. Now you’re a little waif because somebody ruined you. Is that right?”                   

“My name is Azelma,” the youngest girl whispered.                    

“Zee!” the eldest cried. “You spoke!” She turned to Sousy, rough exterior forgotten. “She hasn’t uttered a word since it happened, I…I…Azelma…”                   

Azelma smiled at older girl then turned back to Sousy. “My name is Azelma,” she repeated, “and you?”                   

“Sousy,” Sousy said warily.                    

“That’s a nice name,” Azelma said quietly. Her voice was a dreamy whisper, soft and beautiful. “You’re very smart. You saw our situation even though you don’t know us. You’re like the therapists a bit. They’re very smart too. They know our brains and our thoughts, even when we don’t know them ourselves. They know how certain things feel even though they haven’t lived them. They help us come to conclusions even though we aren’t there yet. I think we can trust them.” She took her sister’s hand. “I think we can trust the therapists and I think we can trust Sousy. My sister’s name is Eponine. Sousy, you’ll be our friend, won’t you?”                   

“W-we do _not_ need friends!” Eponine cried, tugging her hand away from her sister’s grip. “I can take care of you on my own. We do not need others muddying it up. It’s just us. Just the family. You can’t trust outsiders. Hell, you can’t even trust your blood. Look at our mother and father!” She started to giggle uncontrollably and looked like she wanted to die.                   

“Our mother and father are bad people,” Azelma conceded calmly.                   

“ _See_! You can’t trust your own blood sometimes. But us – we’re different. We’re closer than blood, ‘Zelma. You, me, Gav, the little ones – that’s who can trust. We don’t know if we can trust this Sousy. Just because she acts like a therapist, we can’t…” Eponine looked like she was about to crack. Sousy felt a jolt of sympathy for the girl.                    

“You started the conversation with her,” Azelma said softly.                    

“That was just a joke. I thought it would make you laugh.”                    

“It’s unkind to mock somebody who’s stuck in here,” Azelma responded.                    

“Fine, fine!” Eponine cried around a chuckle. “Zee – what do you want from me? I’ll act as if I believe the therapists. I’ll be…kinder to them. Then we can leave, yes? We’ll leave and get back to Gav and the little ones.”                   

Azelma shook her head. “We can’t do this alone, ‘Ponine.”                   

“I can!” Eponine cried. “I can do this alone! I’ve always lived life alone, taking care of you! That’s what I do!” She giggled and giggled for a straight minute before she started to wheeze and gasp. “THERE IS NOTHING AMUSING HERE!” she screamed.                   

Azelma winced and put a hand on her sister’s arm. “We’re in a sanitarium, ‘Ponine,” she said quietly. “This isn’t like living in our old neighborhood. We need help. If we want to get out, we need to bond with people.” She stuck out a hand to Sousy. “You’ll help us get home to our brothers?”                   

Sousy shrugged. “Uh…I suppose. I’ve got people of my own that I need to look out for, though, girls. I’ve got a traumatized little girl – she’s only fourteen – and a truly mad gentleman. Clarisse and Montparnasse are my main priorities right now.”                   

“Clarisse?” Azelma asked. “I believe we know her. We go into therapy when she gets out. She’s very sweet. She won’t talk, though. We would sit and not talk together sometimes when we’ve got recreation time.”                   

“If you can get her talking again, I’d consider it something short of a miracle,” Sousy murmured. “Something just short of a miracle. I’d better go now.” She turned and wheeled away from the girls, back down the hall, her unspoken words hanging in the air: _I’d better go now – before I care too much._

[123]

The therapist Nicolas Grantaire was expecting a couple of new patients. He’d checked their files about ten times each, but was still shocked by them. It was odd, he mused, that he’d be shocked by the loons after serving as a therapist for three years. _And after dealing with yourself, you worthless drunk._ Apparently the two were sadistic half-siblings who’d tried to kill their father multiple times before he’d sent the pair of them away for good. Julien Enjolras and Cosette Fauchelevant were their names, aged fifteen and twenty-three.                    

The door to his small stone office swung open and cracked against the wall. Grantaire looked up and there they were. His eyes passed over the girl and locked on to Julien Enjolras. The man was as beautiful as a god. Short, curly locks of the lightest blonde, eyes as blue as pale crystals, and skin as white as the fresh-fallen snow. He had high, delicate-looking cheekbones and long-fingered hands.                    

And he was looking at Grantaire as if he wished he’d drop dead.                   

“Julien, _dixi roh_?” the adolescent asked.                    

Grantaire attempted to pull himself from his reverie. “Ah, good morning,” he managed. “You’re Julien and Cosette, yes?”                   

The glaring young man gave a short, sharp nod. He turned to his half-sister. “Cosette, _roh lox nor un_.”                   

“What’s that language you’re speaking?” Grantaire asked with an attempt at a jovial tone.                       

“ _Der norumos rox un_?” Cosette asked her brother.                   

“ _Lor_!” Julien half-screamed.                    

“Oh…is it an…African language?” Grantaire asked.                   

“Ignorant,” Cosette snapped. “You’re ignorant.” She shook her head. “An _African_ _language_ , you say? As if Africa is one small country! It is many countries and hundreds of languages and –”                  

 “ _Cosette_!” Julien snapped. His sister immediately stopped speaking.                   

“Oh, so you two _do_ speak English!” Grantaire said, still trying to be cheerful.                   

“Of course we do,” Julien chuckled mirthlessly.  His sharp blue eyes studied Grantaire with an unsettling intensity. “We’re not heathens as you must think we are. We are dignified, refined young people. We are more than you will ever hope to be. Hell, we are Apollo and Aphrodite and you are just dirty Dionysus.”                   

Cosette nodded fervently. “My brother speaks the truth. We are leagues above you.”                   

Grantaire scribbled, “ _Inflated egos!_ ” on their files and sighed a deep sigh.Oh, Lord. These patients would be something new, something dangerous. They had a sense of intelligence and narcissism no other patient he'd had before had possessed. It was frightening and enthralling all at once. 

And as Nicolas Grantaire looked into the hard, pale eyes of Julien Enjolras, he knew that the man would either be his destruction or his salvation.

He wasn't sure what he hoped for.

 


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here's a short little chapter. I'm sorry for how short it is! I'm taking seven classes this year and using my one free period as study hall. The amount of homework I have is INSANE. I'm in AP (advanced placement) English and Advanced Biology (a college level class) and those are kicking my ass. Y'all don't need to hear about that, though. So, I wrote some soft-core smut here. Nothing bad and no descriptions, but this is my first time ever writing anything like this. Please be kind! <3 More chapters to come.

Courfeyrac was feeling joyful. He all but skipped down the cold stone halls, wondrous thoughts in his head. He had a friend. He, Robin de Courfeyrac, had a real _friend_. Jean Prouvaire, the panicky seventeen-year-old Frenchman with a disorder more charming than alarming. He stopped his frisking and paused at a large, grimy window that overlooked the front of the asylum. Was it a bad thing that he’d called Jean’s affliction charming? Was it insensitive? He peered out the window at the clear blue sky. The single tree in front of the castle-like building was turning yellow and red. It was nearing autumn.

                He imagined sitting on the large porch of a house in a hand-carved rocking chair, watching the trees turn into fire. He pictured himself and Jean together on that porch – painted a sunny yellow, perhaps – in matching rocking chairs, commenting idly on trivial things. “The paint on the porch is peeling,” Imaginary Jean said, gesturing to a few places where soft yellow flakes were starting to appear.

                Imaginary Courfeyrac nodded. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “It is. We’ll get the children to paint it, perhaps, on Saturday.”

                Courfeyrac snapped back into reality. It felt like someone had poured cold water over his head. Autumn? Peeling paint and children? He shook his head with disgust and shoved the image far from his mind.

                _I have a friend_ , he thought fiercely. _And he will remain my friend. And one day, we will no longer live here._

“Mr. de Courfeyrac,” a cold voice said.

                Courfeyrac didn’t turn around immediately. He knew that voice better than his own, almost. It was his legal guardian, his caretaker. His “father” for all intents and purposes: Javert. The man who had been his caretaker since he was just ten years old, an ill, dark child. The man had acted about as paternal as a block of ice all these years.

                “Mr. de Courfeyrac,” the cold voice said again. “I’m sure you not attempting to act as if you don’t hear me.”

                Courfeyrac turned and pasted on a grin. “What’s the word, old J?” he asked amiably.  “Come to check up on me , have you?”

                A vein near Javert’s eye twitched. His jaw tightened. “Robin, you are to address me as “sir” at all times. You’re aware of this.”

                “Yes, yes, sorry, Old Sir,” Courfeyrac said with what he hoped was a charming grin. Judging by his guardian’s tight frown, it wasn’t. “Anyhow…what’s the news?”

                Javert sighed. “I notice you seem to have made a…friend.” He said the word as if it pained him.

                “Yes, sir,” Courfeyrac said, guarded. He wondered how Javert had already found out about this. “I have made a friend.”

                “This patient has a history of outbursts of hysteria when in morally compromising situations,” the man said, scrubbing at an unshaven face. “In fact, this boy has panicked even to avoid being impolite. He is a bomb waiting to detonate. You, Robin, may very well be the thing that sets it off.”

                Courfeyrac pasted on a cocky smirk. “You really are determined to keep me unhappy, aren’t you, Old J?”

                “Of course not, boy. I am your legal guardian and therefore it is my duty to keep you safe – and keep others safe from you should the need arise. This is my sanitarium and I intend to keep its patients –”

                “Safe,” Courfeyrac snapped. “Yes, I quite understand. Is that all, _sir_?”   

                “I don’t like your cheek, Robin. And no, that is not all. Mr. de Courfeyrac Sr. will be coming to visit you this Sunday with your family. He wished me to inform you that if you are ‘cured,’ he will be retrieving you from my asylum to operate the Oregon branch of the De Courfeyrac Banks. Do you understand?” His hard blue eyed bored into Courfeyrac’s own. 

                For once in his life, Robin de Courfeyrac was speechless. It was a Tuesday, which meant that in five short days, he would be seeing his family. His _family_. For the first time in eight years! Pearl…Pearl would be sixteen years old, nearly a proper woman. The boys…they would be fourteen, twelve, and ten. Good God. And Freda, whose face he hardly recalled, would be a young girl. He wondered if he would have more siblings. If Mother had kept up her habit of having children every two years, that would give him four new siblings. He sucked in a deep breath.

                His family.

                But then he thought of the day he was taken from them, and all of his excitement vanished in a second. He wondered if Freda still bore scars all over her body from where his knife had cut deep. “I…I don’t know,” he said heavily. “I…”

                Javert sighed deeply. “I have other matters to attend to, Robin. I will see you this Sunday to escort you to your family and I expect you to be on model behavior.” With that, the man turned and walked back down the cold stone corridor, his boots clicking ominously.

                Courfeyrac sank down and pressed his back against a roughly-hewn stone. He put his head between his knees and took deep, shuddering breaths. His family…

                Suddenly, he heard footsteps and voices. They were approaching quickly, giving him no time to escape.

                “A-and th-this is one of our m-m-many h-halls. N-not m-m-much to s-see here.”

                Courfeyrac looked up and saw two of the most beautiful people he’d ever seen in life. A boy around his own age with a tragic beauty about him was the first one. The boy had black curls much like Courfeyrac’s own with dark eyes. Marius. That was his name. Marius was the friend of Jean Prouvaire. Jean had asked him to befriend the boy.

                What a perfect distraction!

                He hurriedly straightened up and gave what he hoped was a winning smile. Maybe even a bit rakish. “So you’re the boy I’ve heard so much about,” he said smoothly, and took Marius’s hand. Deciding to be a bit bold, he brushed his lips across the boy’s knuckles.

                And then he saw _her_.

                The girl who accompanied Marius, no more than fifteen, blonde and cherubic with shrewdness in her eyes befitting a Gypsy. Still holding Marius’s hand, Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow. “And you must be our new sociopath. Well…hello, little bird.”

                “Wh-who are you?” Marius stammered, tugging his hand away.

                Courfeyrac bowed. “Robin de Courfeyrac at your service, but you may call me Courf. I’m a dear friend of that little Frenchman, Jean Prouvaire. I’ve been told to befriend you as well, my stammering sweet.” He hoped he wasn’t being too bold. He liked the nickname he’d given himself, though. It separated him from his father, Robin de Courfeyrac Sr.

                Marius’s face turned the shade of the tomatoes Courf used to steal from Mrs. Smith’s garden. He grinned happily, seemingly struck dumb.

                The girl frowned. “You’re unwise,” she said in a voice too soft for her illness, “to talk saucily to a man in here. If certain people found out, you’d be kept in a zoo.”

                “You minx!” Courf laughed. “Are you attempting to blackmail me? Well, let me tell you, it’s a valiant effort. But I may have to tell the administration about the way I see you gazing at your brother.”

                The slap Cosette gave him send his head reeling so hard to the right that he saw stars. “You disgusting, dirty, filthy –” she screamed. “How _dare_ you accuse me of –?” She couldn’t finish her sentence she was so angry.

                Courfeyrac moved a hand over his groin to hide the growing bulge. “I’m an honest man, dear girl.” _Shit_ , he thought. Well, there was something he enjoyed. Perhaps he could ask her to slap him again.

                Marius’s eyes flickered briefly to his new friend’s crotch and he turned red as a cherry. “I-I d-d-don’t m-mean t-to b-b-be im-im-impolite, b-b-but…” He gestured vaguely at Courf’s trousers.

                Courfeyrac chuckled. “What can I say for myself,” he laughed, “I may be a madman, but I am still a man.”

                Marius cracked a grin. “H-happens t-t-to th-the b-b-b-b-b-best,” he laughed, so flustered that he couldn’t speak.

                “Yes, it happens to the best of us. Ah, well, I may want to go take care of this.”

                “You think I’m in love with my brother,” Cosette snarled suddenly.

                Courfeyrac smiled to see if she was jesting, but realized quickly she was not. “Sweet child,” he said patiently, “you’re young and pretty and confused. Nothing to be ashamed of.  Your brother is much older than you and you’re happy to be a little sadist if he wishes  you to. You’ve got no morals, so somewhere along the way you fell in love with him. It happens. Best not to pursue this, though, or you’ll be locked up here forever.” He felt a surge of sympathy for the girl, and put an arm around her. “I came to this sanitarium when I was ten years old. I was ill and sadistic and dark. But…but more than anything, I was scared.” He paused. He’d never told anyone that.

                “Fragile children…children with too many siblings and no attention…they take charge of themselves and grow hard. Even when they are desperately lonely, they build up a…a shield for themselves. They grow cold and hard to hide their pain. They study things they should not. Delve into dark temptations. Do things I – uh, they – regret. You will do things you regret, girl. Your brother –”

                “He isn’t my brother,” the girl blurted. “Papa married his mother when I was young – just five – and he was nearly an adolescent. He taught me things.” Her voice grew distant, ghostly. “Bad things.”

                “D-d-did h-he ab-b-buse you?” Marius stuttered. The thought of an asolcent boy touching a child of five made the boy want to vomit. And then kill the bastard.

                “No!” Cosette cried. “God, no!” Her pretty face transformed into a snarl. “My brother would never abuse me. Julien is perfect and elegant. We are Apollo and Artemis. We will kill whomever we have to in order to make the world a beautiful place like Julien wants, I will – I will…” She burst into tears and sunk to her knees, sobbing all the while. “I was ready to kill Papa for him.”

                Marius knelt down beside her and hesitantly wrapped his arms around the girl. “It-it’s alright, Cosette,” he whispered. He looked to Courfeyrac helplessly. “You-you see, m-m-madness was thrust o-on us. We d-didn’t ask f-for this c-c-curse.”

                Little Cosette sobbed into his embrace with all the guilt and sorrow a body as slender and small as hers could possess. Courfeyrac sank down beside them and patted Marius’s arm awkwardly. How does a narcissist deal with a sobbing sadist? He had no idea what to do. Still Cosette wept on.

                “Let me take your mind off your sorrows!” he blurted.

                Cosette looked up, her eyes red and cheeks tear-stained and puffy. She hiccupped and wiped her running nose. “ _How_?” she whispered. “Good God, make me forget the things I’ve done.”

                Marius tightened his hold on her and made unflinching eye contact with Courf. “My stammering beauty,” Courf grinned smoothly, “do you understand what I intend to do?”

                Marius nodded, blushing scarlet, but with a wicked grin. “I- I believe I d-do,” he said with hardly a stammer. With that, he held the adolescent girl at arm’s length and kissed her hard. She was so shocked she did nothing at first, and then responded with fervor. In fact, she was so eager the force of her pushed Marius on to his back. She straddled his hips, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and pulled him up for another burning kiss.

                Courfeyrac, bemused, laid a hand on each of their shoulders and gently pulled the two apart. “And whose idea was this in the first place, lovebirds?” he scolded. “I believe I should be let into this fun little event.”

                Cosette was flushed red as she awkwardly de-straddled Marius and got up to face Courf. “You wish to partake in our company, then, Courf?” she asked breathlessly. “Even though I’m just a sweet child?”

                “Girl, I am eighteen, not forty. And besides, I must say I’ve my disposition is a tad sinful.” With that, he kissed the girl. Before long, he could tell Cosette felt the bulge pressing into her thigh. She took Marius’s hand and watched with a smile as the boys shared a surprisingly chaste kiss.

                “You know, sirs,” she said innocently, her hands clasped behind her back, “I’ve never been with a man before. You’ll have to be gentle with me.”

                Marius responded by giving her ass a firm squeeze. “C-c-can’t promise,” he stuttered.

                “I believe there are some empty rooms, sirs,” Cosette continued. “Patients weren’t meant to sleep in rooms with dozens of others. The cheap millionaires who run this place have just made it so to cut spending on bedding and such. Well…some rooms still have beds.”

                Marius took Cosette’s hand and Courf’s and dragged them away as fast as his feet could take him.

XXX

                Grantaire was sitting in his office with a patient he just couldn’t crack. He was feeling discouraged. This was the third patient of the afternoon, and each had been worse than the last. First, Victor Bahorel, broad-shouldered and hulking, who looked as if he could snap bones in half. He had hemmed and hawed throughout their entire session. “I…I have nothing new to say,” he had said at least a half dozen times. Right after that had been the fresh meat, Montparnasse. Quite the track record that boy had. Murder and violence had been his life. Evidently he’d started with his parents. They’d beaten him his entire life, but when they whipped his nine-year-old sister to all hell, the boy had snapped. From then on, he’d had a taste for blood, especially after said nine-year-old was kidnapped by a human trafficking ring. The young man had slaughtered and ravaged his way since. Now, at seventeen, he was stuck at the asylum and would only say, “Where’s Clarisse? Where’s Sousy?”

                The last patient had been poor little Masselin Feuilly, who was so far gone that doctors were considering a lobotomy. He had large dark circles under his cheery green eyes. The boy was a handsome young fellow, short and stocky with orange hair that curled like wire wool.

                There session had gone as such:

                Masselin was ushered in by the ever-irritating Dr. Percy Ricketts. That fat bastard thought of the patients as idiot children. Sickening, it was.

                “Here’s the loon, then,” the portly Englishman said. After roughly shoving Masselin into the chair opposite Dr. Grantaire, he’d lingered in the doorway. “You know,” he said confidingly, grinning as if he were a housewife sharing a piece o f top-notch gossip, “they say a lobotomy is in order for this one. Sheer madness in him, truly! Won’t give a clear answer no matter how he’s probed.” Dr. Ricketts smirked. “Though of course, Old Grant, you never truly do get intelligible things out of these madmen.”

                “Dr. Ricketts,” Grantaire growled, “I would be much obliged if you would let us begin our session unmolested.”

                Dr. Ricketts harrumphed and grumbled about this generation’s unflagging impertinence and no one would dare be so rude in _his_ country, thank the Heavenly Father.

                “Your personal feelings aside,” Grantaire said, “please exit my office. And, Dr. Ricketts, restrain from using nicknames with me.” The man spluttered and grumbled all the way into and down the corridor that led away from Grantaire’s office. He snorted and turned to Masselin Feuilly. “What a windbag!” the curly-haired man laughed. He leaned towards the man and gave a gentle smile. “So, Mr. Feuilly, how are you?”

                The man smiled absently. “Oh, wonderful,” he sighed. “It’s nice here, friend. The stones are gray and cold, yes, but the windows are many. There’re bars over the windows of course, and they do keep us trapped in here like wild animals, but the view is what matters. We see trees  and rolling hills. It’s autumn now. Oh, it’s beautiful. One day I’ll be out of here, friend. And you will too.” The man leaned towards Grantaire and patted his knee. “Don’t despair, friend. We will leave this hellish place.”

                Grantaire had sent the boy away after that. He couldn’t take anymore. God, how this asylum depressed him. The patients, so desperate to be free or so insane.  The loneness and isolation they must have felt. He picked up the flask at his hip and took a swig. “And you,” he said aloud to himself, “you’re not any better than they are. Swigging drinks and bringing yourself to ruin.”

                He sighed and took another drink.    

                    


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I am ever so sorry for the late update. I know I always say that, but I've got a valid reason. Going through a very painful breakup this week, along with post-show depression. I'm fine and happy, but I broke it off and I do feel a lot of sorrow over that choice. It was almost two years of my life, you know? I still love him, just not in a romantic way. That's what caused the badness. Okay, I'm sorry for my word vomit. 
> 
> Here's the chapter, featuring: Claquesous, Montparnasse, Clarisse, Eponine, Azelma, Grantaire, Combeferre, Joly, and Feuilly! Lots of character development and some hardcore action will be coming up within the next few chapters. And maybe some more action from our favorite threesome? ;)

Sousy wheeled herself down yet another corridor. Despite all of the somber thoughts that weighed heavily upon her mind, she couldn’t help but be amused at how many damn corridors this place had. The asylum really was massive. Though she would gladly say she hated it there, she was a tad impressed with the architecture. The place was modeled after some famous Irish castle, turrets and all. The only differences between the two were the barred windows and furnished rooms. She pushed her rickety wheelchair further down the hall over a threadbare carpet.

            “Think on the positives, girl,” she said aloud. “You at least have the capacity to think positively.” She allowed herself a shrug. “At least that means something. Your arms are becoming strong and muscular. You’ve made…friends…possibly. You know ‘Parnasse is safe. And…and one day you’ll be getting out of here.” She reached the end of the corridor and turned right.

            An orderly, the plump and kind Mrs. Brun, appeared as if out of nowhere. She raised a hand in greeting to Sousy. “Good morning, Miss Claquesous.” Mrs. Brun was well-meaning, but she treated the patients as if they were children who were a bit simple. If there was anything Sousy couldn’t stand, it was being patronized.

            “Hello, ma’am,” she said politely. “Can…I help you?”

            The woman nodded, taking Sousy’s slender hand in own tiny, plump ones. “Yes, Miss Claquesous, it’s time for your bath.”

            “I can bathe myself,” Sousy answered crossly. “I bathed when my legs were mangled and infected. I can bathe now that I have these stumps.” She wiggled her left one, amused at the orderly’s frightened look.

            Mrs. Brun tried to shake off her discomfort, failed, then frowned and trembled a bit, as if the mention of such a horrible thing was too much for her. “Dear…hydrotherapy is what we do here. It helps.” She did interesting things when she was nervous, this woman, all relating to her physical appearance. First, she smoothed down her matronly blouse that failed to hide her ample bosom. Then she adjusted the ankle-length skirt she wore. After that, her chubby little hands would drift up to her hair – lank and orange – and make sure it was still back in its severe bun. Sousy could see that the woman was unnerved by her lack of a reply. So she repeated herself: “Hydrotherapy is what we do here. It helps calm…”  

            “I’m not a madwoman,” Sousy shot back. “And you know that, Mrs. Brun. Besides, hydrotherapy is bullshit.” At the woman’s gasp, she rolled her eyes. “ _Come now_!” the brown-haired girl admonished. “An oath won’t kill you, woman! Think of your hydrotherapy from the perspective of the people you put through it. Not loons, not insane monsters. People. They’re stripped naked, firstly. How humiliating that is. And for those of us who served as whores –” She acknowledged her pain with a small grimace “– it’s like reliving some kind of hell, to be stripped against your will. Next, they’re shoved into a tub colder than ice and water hotter than hell is poured on them. Imagine the injuries you’d attain, ma’am, struggling to get away from that scalding water. And then, when they shove a lid over your whole body save for your head. You lie there in humiliating agony, praying –”

            “Miss Claquesous, be _quiet_!” The normally timid woman slammed the flat of her palm on Sousy’s left leg stump. “You’ve lived a harsh life and you’re unhappy here. That’s fine! But don’t you dare insult our asylum, our place of refuge –”

            “Shut your mouth, you fat cow,” Sousy growled, “and don’t touch me again.” With that, she wheeled herself away as fast as she could. The girl steered her rickety wheelchair faster and faster, wincing as it hit rough, uneven patches of stone. She clattered down a corridor, turned a corner and then wiped out. The right wheel snagged on a particularly uneven stone and the chair tipped sideways. Sousy fell, landing hard on her spine. She cried out, cursed, and that quickly turned to weeping.

            God, how stupid this all was. Pointless. Her life was a mess and this ridiculous, coffin-like, cold, gray, dismal asylum was home. Her bosom buddies were raving maniacs. A mute girl and another who giggled like a hysterical animal. And was she really any better than them? Some useless broad with stumps for legs. Some idiot who’d fallen in love with a murderer. And her spine was on fire. She couldn’t help being self-pitying, dammit. Her life was shit! God, how she wished her were dead.

            She started to sob on her back in that stony hall, her hands covering her face.

            And that was how four people found her.

             First came Clarisse and Azelma, silent as usual. They could have been twins of a fraternal nature, Azelma with her copper ringlets and Clarisse with hers as dark as pitch. Their eyes were hazel and pale blue, respectively, though they held the same frightened pain. Their most similar feature, however, was their silence. Azelma hadn’t spoken since her conversation with Sousy and Eponine, and Clarisse hadn’t spoken since she’d been begging her older brother not to murder her pimp.

            Those poor, broken children.

            The two girls had just been sitting in rocking chairs as they did every morning when Azelma had silently suggested a walk. They came upon Sousy and her tipped-over wheelchair about ten minutes into their quiet stroll. After exchanging a brief look with her friend, Clarisse ran to Sousy’s side and helped her up.

            Clarisse brought the elder girl into a hug while Azelma righted the upset chair. Clarisse, using all of the strength her arms possessed, lifted Sousy into the chair. She patted the young woman’s cheeks, tried for a smile. Azelma squeezed Sousy’s hand and the three of them set there in silence for a spell while the brown-haired woman hiccupped and sniffled.

            When her tears had finally stopped, words poured out of Claquesous like a dam breaking. She told the two young adolescents about her entire life, from her parents dying when she was just six to her time as a whore to falling in love with Montparnasse. She filled Clarisse in on gaps in her brother’s history and it made them all cry.

            That was how Eponine found the trio, crying and smiling like old women reliving a war and the sweethearts they’d lost in it. Eponine didn’t understand it at first, resisted their arms offering hugs. She caved eventually, though, and joined them. The four young women talked for hours in that dim hallway. They swapped life stories of pain and hardship, but also of joy and peace.

            Eponine won their hearts with a tale of one Christmas when the children had had nothing. She said: “Papa was out drinking like he always was. I was fourteen, so I knew the score, but the little ones didn’t. My second youngest brother – Lightning is his name – was just five at the time. The littlest one, Bunny, was three. They didn’t understand why they weren’t receiving presents from Saint Nick and why their mama was out in town fucking other men.” Eponine shook her head here, sorrow etched in her eyes. “Me and my brother Gav went out of the house, searched for hours in the most dangerous part of town, and found a stray dog. This ugly, mangy thing that bit half my finger off.” She held up her right hand and it was true: half of her pointer finger was just…gone. “We brought it in the house and said it was from Saint Nick. Of course, it was perhaps five minutes before it tried to attack the little ones. We had to kick it out after, but the children had fun.”

            It was a healing few hours…until Montparnasse found them. The teen was sprinting as fast as his legs would take him, nearly falling forward. He was restrained in a straight jacket and his long, beautiful hair had been shorn. It was now short and choppy. One of his eyes was swollen shut. Sousy was abruptly and painfully taken back to the first time they’d met.

            “Sousy! Clarisse!” he gasped, and fell to his knees in front of them. Eponine and Azelma jumped away as if they’d been shocked with a cattle prod, but he ignored them. He laid his head in Sousy’s lap and smiled as tears ran down his face. “Sousy, Sousy, my love,” he wept.

            “’Parnasse,” she whispered, and ran her hands through his awful, short hair. “My ‘Parnasse, you little idiot, what’ve you done?” She held one hand up, blindly groped for Clarisse’s, and took it. Sousy could all but feel the young adolescent trembling. “What have you done?” she repeated.

            Montparnasse looked up at her, and in that crystal blue eye was the queerest expression. Something like sadness. Regret. Desperation. “I-I did what I had to do,” he stammered. “Sousy, please, darling…you know why. He – he took Clarisse. My baby sister. He did…things…to her. I had to kill him. Those cops were just – just collateral damage!” He wiggled around, trying to get his arms free. “Please, can’t you get this thing off me? I just want to hug you. And Clarisse. My baby sister.” He started to cry again.

            Sousy stroked his hair and smiled down at him. “You killed so many people, ‘Parnasse. The therapist you see talks to Dr. Joly – a personal friend of mine – about his patients. It’s a bad idea, I know, but he does. You killed your parents, ‘Parnasse. And then you killed the man who hurt my Carlisle. Then you got Clarisse’s pimp. That cop. And God knows how many other people. You hurt people, Mont. I know they were bad people – evil people, maybe, but you hurt them. You killed them. You need to be here. It’ll help you.”

            Clarisse let go of Sousy’s hand and knelt down to her brother. She hugged that boy with all the strength of her skinny, battered little body.

            “I’m not a madman,” Montparnasse insisted. “You know that, Clarisse. You know that, Sousy. ‘My darling, my darling, my life and my bride,’ remember? Poe? The poetry? We read it together. You – you read it to me at night.” He shook his sister off and stood up to his full, lanky height. His tears were gone. “I’m not a madman. I’m a man who loves you, and a man devoted to his younger sister. We can get out of here. We can escape.” He shook himself. “We don’t have to go back to Chicago. We can live here – in Oregon. Pick any town and I can take you. We’ll be a family.”

            Clarisse shrank back. She shook her head. Small movements at first, and then frantic. Nearly hysterical. She gestured to herself and then swept a hand in a broad arc around them. The meaning was clear enough: _I must be here_.

            Azelma and Eponine backed away. Eponine began to giggle sporadically. The little laughs shook her whole body in what looked to be a painful way. It was clear ‘Parnasse was frightening everyone. Sousy sighed. She took the beautiful killer’s face in her hands and kissed him.

            In that kiss was everything she had never said: _I love you. I’m sorry about the life you’ve lived. I’m afraid for you.  Of you. I wish we weren’t here. You’re a madman._ She moved her lips against his with passion, fury, fright.

            When she finally broke the kiss, Montparnasse was flushed and panting. He smiled a hopeful smile. “So you do love me after all.”

            “Of course I do,” Sousy whispered. “I have _always_ loved you. And that’s why this pains me.” With that, she turned and wheeled away as fast as she could, ignore Montparnasse’s plaintive wails behind her.

[123]

            The three men sat together in their well furnished break room, all talking at once. The first, a ginger-blonde man with a heavy French accent, nearly snarled. “You both know this place is becoming more unethical by the day! This plan makes perfect sense!”

            The second, a tall, bespectacled French-Haitian man, pounded his fist on the round table in front of them. “God dammit, Lucien!” he snapped. “This plan is risky and irresponsible at the best! We’d be stripped of our licenses and shipped back to France in shame!”

            The third and quietest, ran a hand through his thick black curls with a sigh. His green eyes burned and his face was three days unshaven. He hadn’t had more than ten hours of sleep in the past five days, and it was taking its tole. He growled, “This is ridiculous, you two! Arguing like children, you are. Won’t you shut up and listen to me?!”

            This quieted the arguing men. Grantaire took a deep breath and continued: “We must keep this between us. What you’re talking about is truly insane – more insane than the people in this asylum. If we get caught, we’d be jailed for life, not sent away in shame. But this must happen. This asylum is a toxic place. The practices aren’t humane. I mean…Joly…your boy – the black boy with the dreamy eyes – they want to lobotomize him.” At this, Joly flinched like he’d been shocked. “I’m sorry,” R said quietly. “The surgeons, they talk. One of them – that skinny brat – was bragging about it.”

            Joly shook slightly. “I have seen horrors in my time as a doctor,” he conceded. “I have cared for patients, but never with my whole heart as I do for Bossuet.” At Grantaire’s raised eyebrows, he stiffened. “And ‘Chetta, of course.” His eyes were a bit dreamy before he blurted, “And Claquesous and that poor girl Clarisse and all the others.” His face was red.

            Combeferre cleared his throat. “Of course, Lucien.  And I care for Eponine and her sister and…the rest.” Now the dark-skinned doctor was red in the face as well.

            “Alright,” Grantaire sighed, “we care for the patients. That’s been established. And this place is a hell-hole, also established. But we will most likely get caught. Some of these people really are mad. They could give us away.”

            Combeferre rummaged around in his briefcase that had been lying on the floor next to him. He pulled out a plain black notepad and showed it to his friends. “This, _mes amis_ , is the place where we will record our plans. I’ll keep it with me on all times, understood?” The two men nodded grimly as Combeferre began to write.

[123]

            Feuilly felt something. Bad.

             Specifically, it felt as if someone had plugged a live wire into his veins. Instead of blood, raw electricity whipped through his body. He opened his mouth and screamed. It felt as if someone was flaying him, peeling the very skin from his bones. He screeched with pain, fury, confusion, terror. “GOD HELP ME!” he cried.

            A frozen lake and a tall, dark man flashed through his thoughts. _No, God. Not this again._ Falling snow, frigid water, the crack of a whip. “You like that, little shit? Like that?” _No, papa, please. Please, no! I’ll be a good boy this time, promise on God. Please don’t hurt me no more!_

His eyes shot open and it felt as if is head had been shoved into freezing water. A striking moment of clarity. _Where am I? The asylum. Who was I thinking of? My father. I have a father? I do not sleep. Tom. Tom the Irishman. His sluttish girl, Marybell. My friend. My new friend. Vic Bahorel. He’s quiet and afraid of his own strength. I have a friend? What is a friend? How strange I feel. No more pain, Father, please, Papa, please Daddy, don’t hurt me no more. What? No! Don’t sink down in the mire! Papa, please! I don’t like the whip! My friend, Vic Bahorel._

And then he was gone again.   

 

 

                  


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody! Here's an update! There's fucking in it! :0

Jean Prouvaire felt it in his bones: something was…off with Marius and Courf. The two had become friends, good ones at that, which delighted Jean to no end. They had become an inseparable trio, laughing and talking late into the night. When Jean or Marius had an episode, Courf was there to effortlessly calm them down. When Courf became fidgety and looked as if he was on the verge of attacking someone, Jean and Marius directed the conversation away from what was making him jump out of his skin.

            And yet something was off.

            The two of them exchanged many lingering glances that meant something Jean wasn’t privy to. It bothered him to be stuck on the outside of the two people he had brought together. Call him juvenile, but he felt like a cast out kitten.

            When Courf’s family came to visit, he asked Marius to accompany him to see the group instead of Jean. He could hear them leaving their beds in the night to go somewhere together quite often. Resentment began to build up in his heart. He did not like this at all. He felt like a burden to the two of them. His episodes began to happen more and more frequently until one day during the free hour, he screamed, “WOULD YOU PREFER IT IF I WASN’T HERE?!” and ran away sobbing.

            He dashed through the asylum, tears dripping down his face. _Can’t you see when you’re unwanted? They prefer each other’s company to yours, silly boy. You’re a burden. They are kind to you and patient with you because they know you will get hysterical if they leave. Stupid, stupid. Wouldn’t you be better off dead?_ He turned corners and darted away from people until he was completely and utterly lost.

            He sank down against a wall and stared out of the barred window. It was still autumn, though just barely. The large trees that surrounded the place had lost almost all of their leaves, leaving them near-skeletons. The sky was gray as the walls of the asylum and those last few clinging-on leaves were the only splashes of color in the dead landscape. Jean tried to breathe, tried to calm himself. _You mustn’t make a nuisance of yourself, Prouvaire. That’s why Maman sent you away, isn’t it? Come now, admit that she stopped loving you because you were too much of a burden._ He wasn’t sure how long he stood there in the disused hall, staring out the window.   

            Suddenly, he heard the soft patter of footsteps behind him. Turning to apologize for being in the way, he caught sight of one of the newest sadists. He’d never seen spoken with the girl, but he had heard snippets of conversation about the girl from Courf, who seemed to enjoy her company. “Pardon, miss,” Jean murmured. “I don’t mean to be in the way of the window.”

            She cocked her head at him.

            “Would you like me to leave?” he asked.

            The girl shrugged. She was a pretty little thing with alabaster skin and wide blue eyes. Her hair was the color of butter and her smile was the color of blood. “You don’t _have_ to go, pretty boy,” she teased. “You could tarry a while.”

            Jean blanched. This girl terrified him. “Um…” he stammered. “If…if you would like me to.” The girl advanced on him, grinning savagely. She stopped when their chests touched.

            “You’re very delicate-looking,” she observed candidly. “My name is Cosette.”

            “J-Jean Prouvaire.”

            Cosette ran a finger down his cheek and bared her teeth at him. “Well then! Introductions and pleasantries aside, Johnny boy, you know, of course, what I’m here to discuss with you. As we are all aware, I’m acquainted with your friends Mr. Courf and Mr. Marius in a _very_ intimate manner.” She sighed – or was it a moan? “ _Oh_ , I enjoy them so. It’s such a shame we couldn’t get you involved in our little affair.”

            Jean’s face _burned_. Oh, Lord. _Oh, Lord_.  Things in his head clicked like puzzle pieces and he found himself at a loss for words. Suddenly, the glances and that secret night rendezvous made much more sense. He clenched his fists and managed a tiny noise, something like, “Uhhh…”   

            Cosette continued on as if she had not just ruined his blissful innocence. “Now, our Marius has quite a bit of trouble talking. He is quite shy with his mouth. But! If that pretty little mouth is otherwise occupied…well…that’s a different story.” She giggled. “And Courf is ever so _rough_. God, that boy and his hands.” She made that sigh-moan again and fidgeted slightly. “The situation works for all of us, really. Marius would rather stay silent than talk, rather give than receive. Set that boy up between your legs and he will be happy!” She shuttered with pleasure. “Ah, that mouth. And Courf – well, we both know that he is constantly on the verge of attacking some poor soul. He’s said to me, ‘Cosette, I’ll jump out of my own skin! I’ll rip someone to shreds!’ We keep Marius out of his roughhousing, but I’m more than willing to be a victim if he wishes to choke me or slap me around.” She grinned. “And I love, I really do! Marius is so sweet and Courf is so rough. Such a shame we couldn’t get you to join us.” She reached up and brushed her lips against his.       

            Jean endured the soft kiss before yanking himself away. “Oh, God,” he murmured.

            Cosette backed away suddenly. “By God! So they _haven’t_ told you! Those absolute idiots!” She adjusted the formless smock that the female patients had to wear and broke into a savage grin. “I tell you, Jean Prouvaire, I’ll kill the both of them. I will! I’ll strangle that Courf with his own silk tie! I’ll cut Marius open like a cat. I-I…” She was breathing heavily, her eyes unfocused. “I…ah…apologize. I wouldn’t dream of hurting them...” She looked as if she would cry for a moment before continuing quietly, “I asked them to let you in on it. Marius was so ashamed that he had a panic and Courf promised me it would be done. That dastardly charmer told me, ‘My dear, Jean is my best and closest friend. Of course I will tell him! I’ll even ask if he wishes to join us!’ And did he tell you? No! Ugh, you poor lamb. You probably think they hate you or wish you weren’t around. When we are forced to act casual, they can hardly keep from groping each other. I knew you would notice! I knew you could be upset. Oh, you poor lamb.” She cupped his cheek and gave a smile that was almost motherly.

            Jean had trouble processing all of this. So much information had just entered his mind that he needed a moment. “They…they…are engaging in a series of…ugh…trysts…with you? And…each other?” he finally gasped.

            Cosette nodded.

            “Courfeyrac told me you were but fifteen. Cosette, you’re just a child. Ignore him and his desires! He’s lecherous and wrong and – and – and…”

            “Jean!” Cosette cried, and shocked him with a hard slap. “Calm yourself, little lamb. I appreciate your concern, but everyone is willing. Completely willing. The boy may choke me now and again, but he is pockmarked with scars from yours truly.”

            “Oh, no,” Jean breathed. “I’ve just been so impolite, I –”

            “Get a hold of yourself!” Cosette shouted, and slapped him again. He saw stars this time, and flinched away from her. “ _Impoliteness_? Jean, you need to get out of your own head because politeness does not matter in here. We’re in hell, lamb. May as well make the best of it.” She paused thoughtfully. “Your greatest problem is that everyone feeds into your disorder. If they didn’t treat you as if were so damn breakable, perhaps you wouldn’t act it. If they didn’t treat me like a damaged lunatic, perhaps I wouldn’t act it.” She shrugged. “A dose of reality, Johnny boy. Your two closest friends are…well…fucking each other, for lack of a better word. They’re also fucking me. They’ve made you feel as if you’re unwanted because they were too lily-livered to tell you the truth. I’m, ah, sorry for any part I’ve played in that. There. That is the reality of the situation.”

            Jean struggled to come up with an eloquent response, but all he could do was shrug. How to react? In this cold stone hallway, his world had just come apart. His two closest friends were committing sins of the most grievous kind, and they’d dragged this childish girl into their convoluted affair. It made him sick. But he couldn’t be impolite. But he couldn’t be dishonest. And he couldn’t pretend that Cosette wasn’t beautiful, that he hadn’t eyed the soft swell of her breasts under the asylum frock, the curves of her little body. So young and petite, and yet she had a figure grown women could have envied.

            He thought of Marius and Courf kissing, of the charmer dominating the stuttering beauty. He could see Marius’s pale, gently freckled shoulders hunching with embarrassment. Could see his pretty black eyes rolling back into his head. He could see Cosette with a curly head between her legs, her head tossed back in ecstasy. He could see Marius acting the perfect puppy, complaint and sweet. Could see Courf with his hands wrapped around Cosette’s white throat, until the girl was nearly dead. Could see him pounding into the girl from behind like some kind of filthy animal, could see – 

            Jean shook his head and found that his trousers had grown uncomfortably tight.

            He looked to Cosette. “A dose of reality,” he said evenly. “I would like the join the three of you.” 

            Cosette broke out into a grin that was as terrifying as it was titillating. She grabbed his hands and kissed him with more vigour than seemed fitting for her little body. “No one comes through this hall, little lamb,” she said. “Except when they do. Want to take a risk?”

            Yes, Jean decided. He very much did want to take a risk.

[123]

            Masselin Feuilly was floating. Everything was so beautiful and light. The shocks were so beautifully electric. _I sing the body electric._ Colorful lights filled his head as he jerked and spasmed against the doctor’s cart. So beautiful. Oh! There was an orange light! A purple one! And look at that lovely sea green color!

            The sea was made of water. Water…how he longed for it. He was parched, truly parched. His tongue shot through his mouth and somewhere in another galaxy, the doctor administering the shocks chuckled. Off in that alternate dimension, the doctor remarked, “He looks like a dog, does he not?”

            Dogs. Hm. Yes, he had once owned a dog. It was a little thing that looked a bit like a fox. It…she. She was a little rat hunter. Named…named…something.  A particularly beautiful light, one the color of a sunset, obscured his vision. He smiled. It was really lovely.

            “Is the loon smiling?” the doctor asked his colleague, unnerved. 

            _Well, of course_ , Feuilly wanted to say. _The world is such a lovely place. The lights and singing electricity and galaxy doctors. And my little fox-like dog._

            And then, with a smell of burning hair and the gasp of a dying man, Masselin Feuilly’s eyes shot open and his mind was clear.

And he _remembered_.   
[123]

            Eponine was sleeping fitfully in her cot when it happened. She had been worsening for some time, reliving the horrifying attack she and ‘Zelma had endured each night, but never with this much clarity. She could feel the dusty cobbles poking into her back, the chapped lips of the man as she suckled her neck. She could hear their curses, Azelma’s sobs, her own deranged laughter. She could smell piss and wine and the sweet-smelling blood of the man she had killed. She could taste the man’s rotten tongue as it shoved its way into her mouth, the salty tang of her own blood as she bit through her lip. And she could see it all – her innocent sister being ruined by some nameless man, the sky as dark as hell above her.

            The senses were so clear that she couldn’t help but laugh. Her giggle was high and hysterical. She laughed and laughed. How, how does one recover from something as horrible as she had endured? How? And why was it so damn hilarious?

            She shot awake, giggling madly until it turned into screams. Other patients rushed to her bed, Sousy and Azelma among them. Sousy pushed everyone away, bullying them off with her chair. The older woman shook her friend hard.

            “Eponine,” she said sternly, “stop this. You’re hysterical.”

            Eponine laughed and laughed in response, her body jerking. Azelma placed a small hand on her shoulder, frowning. She looked up at Sousy, as if to say: _What do I do?_

Sousy shrugged at the smaller girl. She had dealt with Montparnasse’s episodes and slept curled around the shaking Clarisse each night, but this was different. This was frightening and new.

            “I told you I was not equip to deal with your sister’s madness,” she snapped at Azelma. “Your trauma is your own! Your – your…” She trailed off, watching as the girl giggled and thrashed. Her eyes clearly cried out for help. She remembered their hours of healing in that disused corridor and steeled herself. “Alright. Yes, fine. ‘Zelma, help me get your sister into my chair.”

            The two of them maneuvered Eponine out of the rickety cot and into Sousy’s lap. She shuddered and began to foam at the mouth, laughing and laughing all the while. Sousy wrapped the smaller girl in a bear hug to keep her from hurting herself. “Azelma, push my chair,” she gritted out, her grip on Eponine faltering somewhat. The girl was wriggling and shrieking.

            Clarisse was hiding under the blankets in their shared cot, shaking. “Clarisse!” Sousy cried. “Be brave, Clary, we’ve need of you!”

            The girl poked her head out from the blankets and gazed at them, frightened. She shook her head quickly.

            “We’ve need of you!” Sousy snapped, attempting to maintain her grip on the hysterical girl in her arms. “Clarisse, be brave and get your arse out of that bed. Now! Find Dr. Joly! Azelma, push us after her.”

            Clarisse slowly pulled herself from the bed, flinching when her bare feet touched the cold stones of the floor. She dawdled a moment too long and was fixed with Sousy’s piercing glare. That set the girl dashing so quickly she nearly tripped on the hem of her too-long nightdress. Azelma tightened her grip on the handles of Sousy’s stiff-backed chair and began to jog after Clarisse, attempting to avoid the uneven stones in the floor.

            “Faster, Azelma!” Sousy snarled. The girl took the message to heart because before Sousy knew it, she was all but flying down corridors.  On and on they went, with only moonlight spilling in from barred windows as their guide. Clarisse rapped at each door in the halls, whimpering when they went unanswered.

            How confusing the layout of the place was, doors upon doors, all of them bolted shut and unused. The gray – it was everywhere. The endless corridors were monotonous and utterly maddening. Cold, uneven stones underfoot, low ceilings, and close walls that reminded one uncomfortably of the womb.

            Finally, blessedly, a door that Clarisse knocked upon was answered. A rumbled-looking Dr. Combeferre opened it, his dark curls plastered to his forehead. From behind his spectacles, his eyes widened as he took in the sight of the four young woman.

            “Dear God, what is happening?” he muttered.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how when you're a complete and utter mess and don't update your fic for like seven months...well...here I am.

And so their trysts went on. To give their favorite curly-haired narcissist a taste of his own bitter medicine, Marius and Cosette didn’t tell Courf that Jean was in on their little affair. That made life in the asylum much more exciting, and gave Marius all sorts of qualms. Those qualms were quite hard to remember when Jean’s lips were around his cock, he found. Cosette was happy a lark to have the three boys wrapped around her finger so. Sure, she wanted to slit all their throats occasionally, but being savaged by Courfeyrac managed to cool her down slightly. The bruises and welts were difficult to hide from orderlies, though, and she’d  nearly had to gut Courf to get him to keep his, ah, markings below the neck.

She found it was a bit difficult to reminisce on all of this, as she was currently kissing Marius for all she was worth. He gasped into her mouth when she bit his lip harshly to remind herself just where she was. Marius whimpered and tightened his hold on Jean’s hair. The poor, nervous little lamb was much calmer when his mouth was occupied, and Marius was most certainly occupying him. Marius was just going for the buttons on Cosette’s ugly asylum frock when --

“WHAT?!”

Cosette moved in record-breaking time. She shoved herself away from Marius, yanked Jean away from the other boy by the hair, and then turned around with what she hoped was a winning smile. “Courf! What a surprise finding you here!” 

The boy’s left eye twitched. 

Marius yelped, tucking himself away, and grabbed Jehan for comfort. “C-C-Courf!” he stammered.

“What. Is. This,” Robin de Courfeyrac ground out, his hands balling up into fists.

For the first time since she came to the asylum, Cosette felt fear. “Courf, the idea was mine.” She held an arm out as a barrier between the two fragile boys and the two sadists. “Leave these two. I understand that you may be angry. We kept it from you because --”

Courfeyrac grabbed Cosette by the throat, cutting her calm words into a squawk. Seething, he turned his gaze on Jean Prouvaire. “Jean, take Marius to dance therapy with Mr. Tam. Participate an’ don’t you dare come back here. If you report this to an orderly, I’ll slit your throat while you sleep.  _ Go _ ,” he growled.

Marius couldn’t keep silent any longer. “D-don’t hurt her!” he cried. 

Courfeyrac left eye twitched again. He dropped Cosette, gasping, into a blonde heap on the floor. “Go _ now _ , you stuttering brat, or you’re next.” Jehan dragged Marius away, murmuring softly to him in French. When the last of their footsteps had faded away, he turned his attention back to Cosette. “Girl, your ice is thin. You understand why I’m about to smash your face in, yeah?”

Cosette, snarling, jumped up and pointed her finger in Courf’s face. “Don’t you lay your hands on me, Robin! You promised to tell the poor lamb about our...situation and you did not. You told Marius and I he wasn’t interested! He, in fact, was! So of course we wouldn’t tell you!” 

Courf slapped the girl across the face, sending her reeling. “Whore,” he growled.

Cosette, infuriated, slapped him back with as much force as she could muster.. “Bastard!” She paused for a moment before a sickly sweet grin. “Sir, you just hit a child,” she simpered. 

“And I’ll do it again,” he shouted, grabbing her by the throat and squeezing. He lifted her in the air so her legs kicked and flailed. Anger was coursing through the young man’s mind like an electric current. How dare Cosette drag Jean into their affair? Didn’t she see that he was just too fragile and weak for a sexual relationship? Didn’t she see that Jean was the only one he cared about?! Marius was sweet, Cosette was an outlet for lust, but it was truly Jean Prouvaire he loved. And so what if that made him one of those whispered-about homosexuals? He didn’t care. God could drag him kicking and swearing down to hell if He wished! It was only Cosette’s fingers raking down his face that made him realize he’d screamed all of this aloud. He dropped her into a heap for the second time that day, though this time she was laughing.

She stood up on shaky feet and gave him a grin red as blood. “Poor, poor Courfeyrac. I do hate to disappoint a sinner, but you know Jean is quite in love in Marius. I’m an afterthought. And so are you.” She grabbed him by the collar and brought his face close to hers. “Too bad.” She punched him in the gut, smirked as he doubled over, and then slammed his face into her knee. Courf spat blood. 

He looked up at her, eyes unfocused, and stumbled into the stone wall. “An afterthought...” He clutched his possibly-broken nose and bared bloody teeth. “So Mr. Prouvaire doesn’t care.” He barked out a laugh. “An afterthought. What a day.” With that, he sprang at Cosette, unsure if he’d kiss her or kill her.

[123]

Feuilly tore down the hall, tripping over his feet. He gasped like a dying man. He couldn’t let the doctors find him. No, not again. They wouldn’t believe him if he told them he remembered his past so suddenly. He had to tell someone. Someone who would understand. Vic! Vic would understand! He found himself in the men's communal quarters and looked around wildly. “Bahorel!” he screamed. “Victor, I need you!” Heads turned to see the usually loopy young man raving. “Vic!” he cried again. “I remember! I remember it all!” 

Victor came loping up, a wary look on his face. “Masselin, are you alright?”

“YES!” Feuilly cried, happy tears running down his cheeks. “Something...something clicked. I remember it all. My past, my father, why I never sleep.” He grabbed his dear friend’s chiseled jaw and kissed the man gently on his cheek. “My madness...there is a reason...”

_ Seven-year-old Masselin Feuilly could never get anything right. Papa always told him so, each day. “Masselin, you lazy shit, up!” was how he was awoken and “Outta my sight, ya stupid boy!” was how he was dismissed for bed. The words was lost their sting long ago, but Papa’s blows hadn’t. If Masselin was in for a lucky day, he’d get a slap and perhaps a kick aimed that usually missed. If he were unlucky -- and he was most of the time -- he’d get a real harsh beating with The Whip. The Whip was the only God little Masselin knew, the only constant worthy of capitalization. The Whip was a vicious thing, lines with little razors to “make the lesson stick,” as Papa would say.  _

_ Masselin could never get anything right, but one freezing winter day, he got something real wrong. Too wrong. Papa went to help with some manual labor in town and left him home with the task of cleaning the house “‘till it sparkles, y’hear?” He’d been up all  night the night before, hiding in the cellar to avoid a drunken beating. With the winter comin on, Papa was inside more and drank for warmth. In the last three days, Masselin had had perhaps ten hours of sleep. Yawning, he tidied his small sleeping loft, Papa’s bedroom, and part of their tiny kitchen before falling asleep near the still-warm stove. _

_ And then of course his father had found him and given the “lazy, no-good, shit-for-brains, sonuvabitch, good-for-nothing brat” the whipping of his life. The razors had sliced through his thin clothing and on into his skin. Welts were made worse, blood blinded him, and still Papa whipped on. He couldn’t say how long The Whip cracked against his skin, but all he knew was that when Papa’s arm tired, Masselin was sure he’d never stand again. And yet suddenly, he was! Papa had yanked him up and was dragging him outside...somewhere. Snow was falling, so cold it stung his weeping wounds when it landed on him.  _

_ “C’mon, you little bitch,” Papa snarled. “Get movin’.”  _

_ “I can’t walk. I’m sorry, Papa,” Masselin whimpered. It was true. Papa had stomped on his ankle and putting any weight on it whatsoever felt like fire licking up his leg.  _

_ “Shall I carry you then, little prince?” Papa snarled. He attempted to get his son walking again by dragging the boy by the hair. When the boy screamed out shrilly, Papa rolled his eyes and gathered Masselin up under his arm. The position made him want to weep, Papa’s big arm around choking off air, his head nearly hitting the frozen ground with each step the big man took.  _

_ Through a haze of pain, Feuilly realized they had arrived at a large frozen lake. He was dropped on the ground, suddenly, and fell in a sobbing heap.  _

_ “Gonna teach you a lesson and make it stick good, boy. You ain’t gonna turn out like yer whore mama, y’hear me? She may ‘a gave you some fancy French name, but that’s the only trace ‘a her I’ll have ‘round this house. Yer always cryin’ and whinin’, not thankful ‘r nothin’. Don’t earn no money, just moochin’ on me all the time.” He paced around, his boots kicking up snow. “Now I’m out here in the god damn cold. Teachin’ yer sorry, pansy ass a lesson.  _ Again _!” He shook his head with disgust. “Fuckin’ disgrace, s’what you are.”  _

_ Masselin didn’t know how to respond. Papa never talked about his mother. The one time he’d ever asked about her, Papa had broken his nose. “I’m sorry, Papa,” he murmured. _

_ “I’m sorry, Papa,” the big man said in a mocking, whiny tone. “All ya gotta say fer yerself? All the damn time? I’m sorry, sorry, sorry! Well I’m sorry I ever knocked up that dirty French whore and let ‘er stick around. Shoulda offed her sooner than I did!” With that, he gave his son a kick in the side so harsh it sent him rocketing into the frozen lake. The last sight he saw was a smirk on that red-bearded face before his eyes closed. _

“And...and that’s what happened...” Feuilly finished. “A man who lived on the edge of the lake, this old Italian immigrant, rescued me. He let me heal up and set my ankle and everything. I lived with him until I was fifteen. He...he passed away, and that scarred me, I suppose. When your childhood is so traumatic and the only person you’ve ever cared for leaves...something breaks in you. I stopped sleeping, stopped remembering. For a week I sat in some sort of stupor and then I just...got up to go find my way in the world.”

Bahorel breathed out a heavy breath. “Well I’ll be damned.”


End file.
